THE  nnTiniriiirriT  library 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

GIFT  OF 

MR.   AND    MRS.  T.    S.    BRANDEGEE. 
1906 


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BRKRY 


T.  S.   BRANDEGEE 


No. CnRARY 

XX EQi 


PSYCH. 
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psychics: 
facts  and   theories, 


BY 

REV.    :MIN0T  J.  RAVAGE. 

Aicthorof"  The  Irrepressible  Conflict  between   Two    World-Theo- 
ries^''     "  The  Religion  of  Evolution,^''     "  The  Morals  of  Evo- 
hition"      "  Christianity    the    Science   of  Manhood,''' 
'' The  Modern  Sphinx,''   '' Bluffton,"    ''Social 
Problems,'^  etc. 


A  beam  in  darkness  :  let  it  grow.' 


Tennyson. 


BOSTON,  MASS. '. 

COPLEY  SQUAEE. 
1893. 


®      THE 


^;-T?^RN^^ 


53 

PS/G.-l 
LIBRARY 


Copyrighted,  1893 

BY 

ARENA  PUBLISHING  CO. 

A//  rights  7'e served. 


Arena  Press. 


TO 

WILLIAM    JAMES, 

Doctor  of  Pliilosophy  and  Professor  in  Harvard  University. 

My  Dear  Professor, — 

After  having  worked  with  you 
on  the  problems  that  Psychical  Research  seeks  to 
solve,  I  am  glad  and  proud  to  associate  your  name 
with  mine  in  this  little  volume.  If  all  seekers 'were 
as  unprejudiced  as  you  are,  and  the  jury  for  the 
decision  of  these  questions  were  as  fair-minded,  we 
might  hope  not  only  for  speedy  but  for  satisfactory 
results. 

With  affectionate  respects, 

M.  J.  SAVAGE. 
Dec.  28,  1892. 


PREFACE 


This  little  volume  is  made  up  of  certain  papers 
which  have  appeared  in  The  Areyia^  and  of  one 
which  was  published  in  The  Forum  for  December, 
1889.     The  latter  is  re-published  here  by  consent. 

Since  the  appearance  of  these  articles  a  hundred 
questions  have  been  asked.  I  propose  to  take 
occasion  of  this  preface  to  answer  some  of  them  a 
little  more  fully  than  is  j)racticable  by  letter,  and 
also  to  save  myself  the  labor  of  writing  the  same 
things  to  so  many  different  persons. 

No  end  of  people  write  and  ask  if  these  phenom- 
ena may  not  be  explained  by  this  theory  or  that. 
It  may  not  be  out  of  the  way  to  say  that  one  who 
has  been  studying  the  matter  for  eighteen  3  ears, 
has  probably  considered,  with  some  care,  all  the 
theories  he  could  think  of.  He  will  be  grateful, 
however,  for  an}' thing,  by  way  of  suggestion,  that 
is  not  alread}^  long  familiar. 

A  word,  also,  to  those  who  send  accounts  of 
experiences.  However  interesting  they  may  be, 
or,  however  conclusive  to  those  immediately  con- 


vi  P  BE  FACE. 

cernecl,  they  are  generally  quite  worthless  as  evi- 
dence to  others.  This,  for  two  reasons  :  First,  in 
most  cases,  no  record  is  made  at  the  time.  So  it  is 
always  open  to  an  objector  to  say  that  the  memory 
is  unreliable.  And,  secondly,  they  are  not  accom- 
panied by  any  corroborative  testimony  of  others. 
It  cannot  be  too  strongly,  or  too  emphatically  said 
that  those  who  have  these  experiences  should  take 
pains  to  put  their  stories  into  evidential  shape,  so 
that  they  may  help  in  the  solution  of  the  great 
problem. 

There  is  a  class  of  objectors  who  say,  "  If  my 
friends  in  the  spirit  world  can  come  and  com- 
municate at  all,  why  do  the}^  not  come  directl}^  to 
me  ?  Why  must  I  go  to  a  medium  ?  "  For  reply,  I 
will  ask  another  question.  If  a  man  can  com- 
municate with  me  along  a  telegraph  wire,  \\\\y 
can  he  not  as  Avell  send  the  message  along  a  board 
fence  ?  I  do  not  know.  I  only  know  that  elec- 
tricity will  work  along  a  wire,  but  will  not  along 
a  fence.  Why  can  I  not  play  the  piano  as  well  as 
Blind  Tom,  since  I  may  claim,  without  immodesty, 
to  be  more  than  his  intellectual  equal  ?  I  do  not 
know.  Perhaps  it  will  be  as  well  to  recognize 
facts,  and  not  deny  them  because  we  do  not  know 
ivhy  they  are  facts. 

Then  there  are  seekers  who  seem  to  me  quite 
as  unreasonable  as  are  some  objectors.  They  will 
go  to  a  psychic  and  ask  to  be  put  in  communica- 


PBEFACE.  vii 

tion  with  a  particular  friend  inside  of  five  minutes. 
Now,  if  my  friends  are  alive  in  a  spirit  world,  and 
even  if  they  are  sometimes  able  to  communicate, 
is  it  quite  reasonable  for  me  to  expect  them  to 
be  hanging  about  the  door  of  any  particular 
"  medium  "  I  may  take  a  notion  to  visit  ?  Per- 
haps they  niciy  have  something  else  to  do  in  the 
spirit  world.  I  hope  so,  at  any  rate.  If  not,  I 
should  not  like  myself  to  live  there. 

It  ought  also  to  be  remembered  that  failures  are 
quite  as  satisfactory,  sometimes,  as  successes.  If 
it  is  onl}^  a  clever  trick,  then  there  need  be  no 
failures.  If  the  psychic  is  honest,  occasional  fail- 
ures are  to  be  expected.  For  all  that  an  honest 
psychic  can  do  is  to  sit  and  passively  await  results. 

One  more  caution  needs  to  be  pointed  out. 
Some  person,  just  interested,  starts  out  and  appears 
to  think  he  is  going  to  settle  the  matter  in  a  week. 
Unless  prepared  for  a  long,  serious  and  oftentimes 
disappointing  study,  people  had  better  let  it  alone, 
and  leave  it  to  those  better  fitted  for  the  arduous 
task.  A  person  needs  to  be  trained  and  experienced 
as  an  observer;  he  needs  to  know  ^sdiat  is  good 
evidence,  and  what  is  not ;  he  needs  to  know  the 
possibilities  and  resources  of  trickery  ;  and  then, 
perhaps,  his  conclusions  may  be  worth  something. 

People  who  propose  to  visit  Boston  or  XewYork 
are  constantly  writing  and  asking  me  to  give  them 
the  address  of  some  "reliable  medium."     I  almost 


viii  PREFACE. 

always  decline.  For,  first,  I  know  ver}^  few 
advertising  mediums  to  whom  any  first-comer  can  be 
sent.  And,  secondly,  though  I  may  have  had  some 
satisfactory  experience,  it  does  not  at  all  follow 
that  it  can  be  repeated  or  duplicated,  to  order,  in 
the  case  of  another.  Most  of  my  own  experi- 
ences have  been  in  the  presence  of  personal  friends 
to  whom  I  should  not  be  at  liberty  to  send  a 
stranger. 

I  am  often  asked  if  I  am  a  Spiritualist.  Some 
Avho  hate  spiritualism  occasionall}^  charge  me  with 
being  one  ;  while  some  Spirtualists  express  the 
opinion  that  I  am  a  sort  of  Xicodemus,  ayIio  fears 
to  avow  his  belief  in  daylight.  I  may  as  well 
answer  that  question  here.  No,  in  the  popular 
acceptation  of  that  word,  I  am  not  a  Spiritualist. 
As  the  term  is  commonly  used,  it  covers  much 
which  I  do  not  believe,  and  much  which  is  most 
distasteful  to  me.  Should  I  now  adopt  that  name, 
1  should  be  seriously  misrepresenting  my  position. 
Even  though  I  sliould  come  at  last  to  hold  the 
theory  that  communication  for  the  spirit  world 
alone  could  explain  ni}^  facts,  even  that  would  not 
make  me  what  is  generally  understood  as  a  Spirit- 
ualist. 

Spiritualists,  for  one  thing,  seem  to  think  that 
their  ism  is  a  new  reliirion.      This  claim  seems 

o 

to  me  to  be  hasty  and  absurd.  The  joroof  that  the 
"  dead  "   are  alive  and  can  communicate  with  the 


PREFACE.  ix 

living  would  only  put  certainty  in  the  place  of 
hope  as  to  the  destiny  of  man.  It  would  not  touch 
or  change  any  one  of  the  great  essentials  of  my 
religious  creed  or  life.  I  certainly  liope  that  con- 
tinued existence  may  be  demonstrated.  But 
"  Spiritualism  "  is  a  good  deal  more  than  that,  and 
many  other  things  besides  that.  So,  as  the  term  is 
now  used,  I  cannot  wear  it. 

People  often  ask  Avhy,  if  there  is  anything  in 
these  so-called  manifestations,  the}"  have  waited  all 
these  ages  and  have  not  appeared  before.  There 
are  stories  of  similar  happenings  as  marking  every 
age  of  history;  but,  as  reported,  they  have  been 
only  occasional,  and  they  have  not  attracted  any 
serious  study.  Let  us  note  the  stages  of  evolution 
as  having  a  possible  bearing  on  this  point.  First, 
muscle  ruled  the  world.  Then  came  cunning,  the 
lower  form  of  brain  power.  Xext,  the  intellect 
became  recognized  as  king.  After  that,  the  moral 
ideal  showed  itself  mightier  than  muscle  or  brain. 
To-day  it  is  the  strongest  force  on  earth.  No  king- 
dares  go  to  war  without  claiming,  at  least,  that  his 
cause  is  a  righteous  one.  Now  it  is  not  meant  that 
either  of  these  has  ruled  the  world  alone,  for  the}" 
have  overlapped  each  other,  as  have  the  advancing 
forms  of  life.  And  as  heralding  the  advent  of  each 
new  stage  of  progress,  there  have  been  tentative 
and  sporadic  manifestations  of  the  next  higher, 
while  still  the  lower  was  dominant.     Is  it  not  then 


X  PREFACE. 

ill  line  with  all  that  has  gone  before,  that  the  next 
step  should  be  a  larger  and  higher  manifestation  of 
the  spiritual  ?  And,  in  this  case,  are  not  the  ten- 
tative and  sporadic  manifestations  reported  from 
the  past  just  Avhat  might  have  been  expected  ? 
''  First  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn 
in  the  ear."  "  That  was  not  first  which  is  spirit- 
ual, but  that  which  is  natural ;  and  afterward  that 
which  is  spiritual." 

With  these  suggestions,  I  offer  the  reader  the 
following  facts  and  some  discussion  as  to  theories. 
If  the  facts  force  us  to  the  reasonable  conclusion 
that 

"  There  is  no  death,  what  seems  so  is  transition," 

why  should  any  one  shrink  from  having  proved 
that  which  all  men  hope  ?  I  hesitate,  as  yet,  to 
say  that  there  can  he  no  other  explanation  ;  but  I 
frankly  admit  that  I  can  now  see  no  other  which 
seems  to  me  adequate  to  account  for  all  the  facts. 
If  any  one  can  find  another  explanation,  I  am  read}^ 
to  accept  it.  For  what  any  reasonable  man  wishes 
is  only  the  truth. 

M.  J.  Savage. 
Boston,  Dee.  m,  '92, 


'v^aFT^r-^ 


UNIVERSITY 


PSYCHICS  :  FACTS  AND  THEOEIES. 


CHAPTER  I. 

I  AM  to  tell  some  stories ;  others  are  to 
explain  them — if  they  can.  Not  that  I  mean 
to  shirk  any  responsibility.  I  am  ready  with 
my  opinions  as  to  what  seems  to  me  reasonable 
in  the  way  of  theory,  and  what  unreasonable, 
only  I  do  not  propose  to  dogmatize  ;  and  I  am 
ready  to  listen  to  the  suggested  explanations 
of  anybody  else. 

The  one  thing  I  k}ww  about  these  stories  is 
that  theij  are  true.  T  say  this  advisedly  and 
weighing  my  words.  If  in  the  case  of  any  one 
of  them,  I  only  tliinlv  or  believe  it  is  true,  I 
shall  say  so  ;  but  nearly  all  of  them  I  know  to 
be  true — know  it  in  the  same  sense  in  which  I 


8  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

man  should  tell  us  that  he  knew  of  a  country 
where  water  did  not  freeze  at  32  ^  Fahrenheit. 
The  scientifically  impossible  is  one  thing ;  while 
the  improbable,  the  uncommon,  or  the  super- 
normal, is  quite  another  thing.  The  super- 
normal may  be  true.  While,  then,  the  prob- 
abilities are  against  it,  the  proof  may  be  such 
as  to  render  it  credible.  Indeed,  it  is  conceiv- 
able that  the  proof  may  become  so  strong  as  to 
make  incredulity  absurd  and  unscientific.  The 
attitude  of  caution  is  rational ;  but  the  attitude 
of  those  who  "  know  "  a  thing  cannot  be  true, 
merely  because  it  is  unusual,  or  because  it  does 
not  fit  into  the  theory  of  things  which  they 
happen  to  hold — this  is  irrational. 

What  looks  like  proof  of  certain  supernormal 
happenings  has  been  accumulating  so  rapidly 
during  the  last  few  years,  that  public  attention 
has  been  turned  in  this  direction  as  never 
before.  Psychic  investigation  is  becoming 
"  respectable."  It  will  be  fortunate  for  it  if  it 
does  not  become  a  fashionable  fad  for  those 
who  want  a  new  sensation.     It  is  curious,  and 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  ANI)  THEORIES.  9 

would  be  ludicrous  were  it  not  sad,  to  watch 
the  progress  of  these  things.  "  You  ought  to 
be  thankful  to  me,"  said  John  Weiss,  one 
morning,  as  I  met  him  on  Washington  Street, 
"  for  I  have  been  killed  to  make  room  for  you." 
Yes,  brave  men  were  professionally  and  socially 
killed,  to  make  our  religious  liberty  possible. 
And  now  even  the  "Orthodox"  get  great  credit 
for  being  "  liberal,"  and  the  blood-bought  hb- 
erty  is  the  hobby  of  snobs.  Always  some 
Winkelreid  makes  way  for  liberty  at  the  price 
of  fatal  thrusts  of  spears. 

A  world-famous  man.  Church  of  England 
clergyman  and  scientist  in  one,  said  to  me  one 
day,  "  I  do  not  talk  about  my  psychic  experi- 
ences and  knowledge  with  everybody.  I  used 
to  think  all  who  had  anything  to  do  with  these 
things  were  fools ;  and  I  do  not  enjoy  being 
ccdled  a  fooiy  But  now  the  danger  is  that  the 
society  fools  will  go  to  dabbling  in  the  matter. 
Said  another  man  to  me,  a  scholar  known  on 
two  continents,  "  Suppose  you  and  I  should 
come  to  believe,  it  would  only  be  a  coujyle  more 


10  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

cranks  !^^  But  it  begins  to  look  as  though 
the  "cranks"  might  get  to  be  in  the  majority, 
when  a  famous  German  philosopher  can  say 
that  "  The  man  who  any  longer  denies  clair- 
voyance does  not  show  that  he  is  prejudiced ; 
he  only  shows  that  he  is  igiiorant.^^ 

So  much  by  way  of  preface  to  my  stories. 
It  seems  to  me  that  all  these  points,  at  least, 
ought  to  be  kept  in  mind  by  one  who  reads 
them  and  seriously  tries  to  think  out  what  they 
may  mean.     Now  to  the  stories  themselves. 

I.  Let  me  begin  by  telling  about  some  rap- 
pings.  Do  these  ever  occur  except  in  cases 
where  they  are  purposely  produced  ?  Are  they 
always  a  trick  ?  A  vast  amount  of  ingenuity 
has  been  expended  by  those  who  have  thought 
they  could  explain  these  things  as  the  work  of 
toe  joints  or  other  anatomical  peculiarities. 
It  will  be  something  to  find  out  that  genuine 
raps  do  occur,  whatever  theory  may  be  adopted 
in  explanation  of  them. 

I  know  a  regular  physician  living  not  a 
thousand  miles    from    Boston.       His    wife,    I 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEOBIES.  11 

should  call  a  psychic,  though  she  does  not  call 
herself  so.  Neither  she  nor  her  husband  has 
ever  had  anything  to  do  with  spirituahsm,  nor 
are  they  believers.  Where  they  formerly  lived 
they  were  continually  troubled  by  strange  and 
unaccountable  happenings ;  but  though  they 
moved  to  their  present  residence,  the  happen- 
ings— ^with  one  important  exception — have  not 
ceased.  No  attempt  has  been  made  to  reduce 
these  happenings  to  order,  or  to  find  out 
whether  there  is  any  discoverable  intelligence 
connected  with  them.  The  doctor  vaguely 
holds  the  opinion  that  they  indicate  some  ab- 
normal nervous  condition  on  the  part  of  his 
wife.  So  far  the  whole  matter  has  been  treated 
from  that  point  of  view.  But  what  is  it  that 
happens?  Sometimes,  for  two  hours  on  a 
stretch,  the  doctor  and  his  wife  are  kept  wide 
awake  at  night  by  loud  rappings  on  the  head- 
board of  their  bed.  In  accordance  with  his 
nervous  theory,  the  doctor  will  hold  his  wife 
with  one  arm,  while  the  hand  of  the  other  arm 
is  pressed  against  the  headboard,  in  the  attempt 


12  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

thus  to  put  an  end  to  the  disturbance.  Said 
the  doctor  to  me  one  day,  "  If  anybody  thinks 
these  rappings  are  not  genuine,  I  should  like 
to  have  hiin  go  through  some  of  my  experi- 
ences." 

He  and  his  wife  will  be  sitting^  by  the  draw- 
ing-room  table  of  an  evening.  They  will  be 
conscious  of  a  stream  of  cold  air  passing  by 
them, — an  accompaniment  of  psychic  facts 
well  known  to  investigators, — and  then  the 
"  trouble "  will  begin.  Sometimes  it  is  only 
raps.  At  other  times  they  will  hear  a  noise  on 
the  floor  of  the  room  above,  and  will  think 
their  boy  has  fallen  out  of  bed;  but  on  going 
up  to  see,  they  find  him  quietly  asleep.  Some- 
times there  will  be  a  loud  crash  in  the  corner 
of  the  room  over  the  furnace  register,  as  though 
a  basket  of  crockery  had  been  thrown  down 
and  broken.  They  occupy  the  house  alone, 
and  have  no  other  way  of  explaining  these 
unpleasant  facts  than  the  one  alluded  to  above. 

I  give  this  case  because  of  the  undoubted  oc- 
currence of  these  thinofs  in  the  house  of  one 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  ANB  THEOEIES.  13 

who  is  not  a  believer  nor  even  an  investigator. 
There  is  no  expectancy  or  invitation  of  them, 
or  any  superstitious  attitude  of  mind  towards 
them.  They  are,  in  this  case,  plam,  hold, 
apparent  facts,  as  real  as  is  breakfast  or  supper, 
or  the  existence  of  a  brick  in  the  sidewalk. 

The  "one  important  exception"  referred 
to  above  is  this  :  In  the  house  they  formerly 
occupied,  the  doctor's  Avife  sometimes  saw  the 
figure  of  a  woman.  Others  were  said  to  have 
seen  it  also.  It  was  never  visible  to  the  doctor. 
There  is  the  story  of  a  tragic  death  which  con- 
nects this  woman  with  this  particular  house. 
Those  who  believe  in  haunted  houses  would 
thus  be  able  to  explain  why  this  figure  is  never 
seen  in  the  house  at  present  occupied  by  the 
doctor's  family. 

Here  then  are  raps  not  to  be  ex^ilained  as 
the  conscious,  purposed  work  of  anj  visible 
person  ;  nor  can  they  be  explained  as  the  result 
of  the  shrinking  of  boards,  as  the  work  of  rats 
or  mice,  or  in  any  ordinary  way.  Starting 
with  facts  like  these,  many  persons  have  sup- 


14  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

posed  themselves  to  get  into  communication 
with  invisible  intelligences  who  had  taken  these 
ways  of  attracting  attention.  Nothing  of  this 
sort  has  been  even  attempted  here.  I  simply 
set  forth  the  facts  and  the  reality  of  the  raps. 

II.  I  will  now  tell  a  brief  story  of  one  of  my 
own  experiences  in  this  line. 

Until  within  the  past  year  or  two  there  lived 
in  New  York  city  a  lady  who,  when  a  girl,  had 
been  somcAvhat  known  as  a  "  medium."  But 
for  twenty  or  thirty  years  she  led  a  quiet  home- 
life  with  her  husband,  a  well-known  business- 
man. But  intimates  in  the  house  told  stories 
of  remarkable  occurrences.  For  example,  a 
friend  of  this  family  has  told  me  how,  when  at 
breakfast,  after  having  spent  the  night  there, 
raps  would  come  on  the  table  ;  and  by  means 
of  them,  how  long  and  pleasant  conversations 
Avould  be  held  with  those  who  once  had  walked 
the  earth,  but  now  were  in  the  unseen.  This 
is  his  belief. 

Having  occasion  to  pass  through  New  York, 
this  friend,  above  referred  to,  gave  me  a  letter 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  15 

of  introduction,  saying  he  knew  I  would  be 
welcomed  if  I  called  at  the  house  of  this  lady. 
I  had  never  seen  her,  nor  she  me,  but  one 
morning  I  presented  myself  with  my  letter.  I 
was  shown  into  the  back  parlor.  Carpenters 
were  at  work  on  a  conservatory  opening  out 
of  this  room  where  the  lady  had  received  me. 
They  made  more  or  less  noise,  but  not  enough 
to  interfere  Tvdth  our  conversation.  Soon  I  be- 
gan to  hear  raps,  apparently  on  the  floor,  and 
then  in  different  parts  of  the  room.  On  this, 
the  lady  remarked,  simply,  "  Evidently  there  is 
some  one  here  who  wishes  to  communicate  with 
you.  Let  us  go  into  the  front  parlor,  where  it 
will  be  quieter."  This  we  did,  the  raps  follow- 
ing us,  or  rather  beginning  again  as  soon 
as  we  were  seated.  At  her  suggestion  I  then 
took  pencil  and  paper  (which  I  happened  to 
have  in  my  bag),  and  sat  at  one  side  of  a 
marble-top  table,  while  she  sat  at  the  other 
side  in  a  rocker  and  some  distance  away.  Then 
she  said,  "As  one  way  of  getting  at  the 
matter,  suppose  you  do  this  :     You  know  what 


16  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

friends  you  have  in  the  spirit  world.  Write 
now  a  Kst  of  names — any  names  you  please, 
real  or  fictitious,  only  among  them  someAvhere 
include  the  names  of  some  friends  in  the  spirit 
world  who,  you  think,  might  like  to  communi- 
cate with  you,  if  such  a  thing  were  jDossible." 
I  then  began.  I  held  a  paper  so  that  she 
could  not  possibly  have  seen  what  I  wrote, 
even  though  she  had  not  been  so  far  away.  I 
took  special  pains  that  no  movement  or  facial 
expression  should  betray  me.  Meantime  she 
sat  quietly  rocking  and  talking.  As  I  wrote, 
perhaps  at  the  eighth  or  tenth  name,  I  began 
to  write  the  name  of  a  lady  friend  who  had 
not  been  long  dead.  I  had  hardly  written  the 
first  letter  before  there  came  three  loud,  dis- 
tinct raps.  Then  my  hostess  said,  ''  This 
friend  of  yours,  of  course,  knows  where  she 
died.  Write  now  a  list  of  ]3laces,  including  in 
it  the  place  of  her  death,  and  see  if  she  will 
recognize  it."  This  I  did,  beginning  with 
Vienna,  and  so  on  with  any  that  occurred  to 
me.      Again,  I  had  hardly  begun  to  write  the 


PSYCilUJS:  FACTS  AND  THEOlilES.  17 

real  name,  when  once  more  came  the  three 
raps.  And  so  on,  concerning  other  matters. 
I  speak  of  these  only  as  specimens. 

Now,  I  cannot  say  that  in  this  particular 
case  the  raps  were  not  caused  by  the  toe  joints 
of  the  lady.  The  thing  that  puzzles  me,  in 
this  theory,  is  as  to  how  the  toe  joints  happened 
to  know  the  name  oi  my  friend,  where  she  died, 
etc.,  which  facts  the  lady  herself  did  not  know, 
and  never  had  known. 

Certain  theories,  as  explanations  of  certain 
facts,  are  already  regarded  as  demonstrated  by 
those  familiar  with  the  results  of  psychic  inves- 
tigation. Among  these  are  hypnotism,  clair- 
voyance, telepathy,  and  the  agency  of  the  sub- 
conscious self  as  active  about  matters  with 
which  the  conscious  self  is  not  familiar.  Can 
the  simplest,  genuine  rap  be  explained  as  com- 
ing" under  either  of  these?  No  one  has  the 
slightest  idea  how,  and  as  yet  there  is  nothing 
in  this  direction  that,  even  by  courtesy,  can  be 
called  a  theory ;  but  it  may  be  possible  that 
these  raps  are  produced  by  psychic  power.     If 

'A 


18  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES, 

SO,  as  in  Case  1.,  the  psychic  herself  does  not 
know  even  that  she  does  it,  much  less  hoio. 
Ave  they  the  work  of  the  sub-conscious  self  ? 
No  sub-conscious  self  has  ever  claimed  to  do  it. 
And  if  so,  from  what  source  does  this  sub- 
conscious self,  as  in  Case  II.,  obtain  a  knowl- 
edge of  facts  the  psychic  never  knew  ?  To  ex- 
plain these  cases  in  accordance  with  any  yet 
accepted  theories,  mind-reading  must  also  be 
introduced.  This  New  York  lady  must  have 
been  able,  not  only  to  produce  the  raps,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  but  also  to  read  my 
mind  and  tell  me  things  she  never  knew  before. 
But  these  things,  if  they  do  no  more,  reveal 
such  an  extension  of  mental  power  as  to  lead 
us  into  a  world  vastly  unlike  that  which  is  rec- 
ognized by  ordinary  scientific  theories ;  and  it 
may  be  well  for  us  to  be  on  our  guard  lest  we 
invent  theories  more  decidedly  supernormal 
than  the  facts  we  seek  to  explain. 

IV.  My  next  story  goes  far  beyond  any  of 
these,  and, — well,  I  will  ask  the  reader  to  decide 
as  to  whether  there  is  any  help  in  hypnotism 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES.  19 

or  clairvoyance  or  mind-reading,  or  any  of  the 
selves  of  the  psychic^  conscious,  or  sub-con- 
scious. 

Early  on  Friday  morning,  Jan.  18,  1884,  the 
steamer  "  City  of  Columbus,"  en  route  from 
Boston  to  Savannah,  was  wrecked  on  the  rocks 
off  Gay  Head,  the  southwestern  point  of 
Martha's  Vineyard.  Among  the  passengers 
was  an  elderly  widow,  the  sister-in-law  of  one 
of  my  friends,  and  the  mother  of  another. 

This  lady,  Mrs.  K.,  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  B., 
had  both  been  interested  in  psychic  investiga- 
tion, and  had  held  sittings  with  a  psychic  whom 
I  will  call  Mrs.  E.  Mrs.  B.  was  in  poor  health, 
and  was  visited  regularly  for  treatment  on 
every  Monday  by  the  psychic,  Mrs.  E.  On 
occasion  of  these  professional  visits,  Mrs.  B. 
and  her  sister,  Mrs.  K.,  would  frequently  have 
a  sitting.  This  Mrs.  E.,  the  psychic,  had  been 
known  to  all  the  parties  concerned  for  many 
years,  and  was  held  in  the  highest  respect. 
She  lived  in  a  town  fifteen  or  twenty  miles 
from  Boston.     This,  then,  was  the  situation  of 


20  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

affairs  when   the  wreck   of  the   steamer  took 
place. 

The  papers  of  Friday  evening,  January  18, 
of  course  contained  accounts  of  the  disaster. 
On  Saturday,  January  19,  Dr.  K.,  my  friend, 
the  son  of  Mrs.  K.,  hastened  down  to  the  beach 
in  search  of  the  body  of  his  mother.  No  trace 
whatever  was  discovered.  He  became  satisfied 
that  she  was  among  the  lost,  but  was  not  able 
to  find  the  body.  Saturday  night  he  returned 
to  the  city.  Sunday  passed  by.  On  Monday 
morning,  the  21st,  Mrs.  E.  came  from  her  coun- 
try home  to  give  the  customary  treatment  to 
her  patient,  Mrs.  B.  Dr.  K.  called  on  his  aunt 
while  Mrs.  E.  was  there,  and  they  decided  to 
have  a  sitting,  to  see  if  there  would  come  to 
them  anything  that  even  purported  to  be  news 
from  the  missing  mother  and  sister.  Imme- 
diately Mrs.  K.  claimed  to  be  present  ;  and 
along  with  many  other  matters,  she  told  them 
three  separate  and  distinct  things  which,  if 
true,  it  was  utterly  impossible  for  either  of 
them  to  have  known. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  A^U  THEORIES.  21 

1.  She  told  them  that,  after  the  steamer  had 
sailed,  she  had  been  able  to  exchange  her  in- 
side stateroom  for  an  outside  one.  All  that 
any  of  them  knew,  was  that  she  had  been 
obliged  to  take  an  inside  room,  and  that  she 
did  not  want  it. 

2.  She  told  them  that  she  played  whist  with 
some  friends  in  the  steamer  saloon  during  the 
evening  -,  and  she  further  told  them  the  names 
of  the  ones  Avho  had  made  up  the  table. 

3.  Then  came  the  startling  and  utterly  un- 
expected statement, — '^  I  do  not  want  you  to 
think  of  me  as  having  been  drowned.  I  Avas 
not  drowned.  When  the  alarm  came,  I  was  in 
my  berth.  Being  frightened,  I  jumped  up, 
and  rushed  out  of  the  stateroom.  In  the  pas- 
sage-way, I  was  suddenly  struck  a  blow  on  my 
head,  and  instantly  it  was  over.  So  do  not 
think  of  me  as  having  gone  through  the 
process  of  drowning."  Then  she  went  on  to 
speak  of  the  friends  she  had  found,  and  who 
were  with  her.  This  latter,  of  course,  could 
not  be  verified.     But  the  other  things  could 


22  F;sr CHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

be.  It  was  learned,  through  survivors,  that 
the  matter  of  the  stateroom  and  the  whist,  even 
to  the  partners,  was  precisely  as  had  been 
stated.  But  how  to  verify  the  other  statement, 
particularly  as  the  body  had  not  been  dis- 
covered ? 

All  this  was  on  Monday,  the  21st.  On 
Tuesday,  the  22d,  the  doctor  and  a  friend 
went  again  to  the  beach.  After  a  prolonged 
search  amonof  the  bodies  that  had  been  recov- 
ered,  they  were  able  to  identify  that  of  the 
mother.  And  they  found  the  right  side  of 
the  head  all  crushed  in  hy  a  hlow. 

The  impression  made  on  the  doctor,  at  the 
sitting  on  Monday,  was  that  he  had  been  talk- 
ing with  his  mother.  The  psychic,  Mrs.  E.,  is 
not  a  clairvoyant,  and  there  were  many  things 
connected  with  the  sitting  that  made  the  strong 
impression  of  the  mother's  present  personality. 
In  order  to  have  obtained  all  these  facts, 
related  under  numbers  1,  2,  and  3,  the  psychic 
would  have  had  to  be,  not  only  clairvoyant,  but 
to  have  gotten  into  mental  relations  with  several 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  23 

different  people  at  the  same  time.  The  reacl- 
inof  of  several  different  minds  at  once,  and  also 
clairvoyant  seeing,  not  only  of  the  bruised 
body,  but  of  facts  that  took  place  on  the 
Friday  previous  (this  being  Monday), — all 
these  multiplex  and  diverse  operations,  going 
on  simultaneously,  make  up  a  problem  that  the 
most  ardent  advocate  of  telepathy,  as  a  solvent 
of  psychic  facts,  would  hardly  regard  as  reason- 
ably coming  within  its  scope. 

Let  us  look  at  it  clearly.  Telepathy  deals 
only  with  occurrences  taking  place  at  the  time. 
I  do  not  know  of  a  case  where  clairvoyance  is 
even  claimed  to  see  what  were  once  facts,  but 
which  no  longer  exist.  Then  there  must  have 
been  simultaneous  communication  ^\\t\\  several 
minds.  This,  I  think,  is  not  even  clauned  as 
possible  by  anybody.  Then  let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  Mrs.  E.  is  not  conscious  of  pos- 
sessing either  telepathic  or  clairvoyant  power. 
Such  is  the  problem. 

I  express  no  opinion  of  my  own.  I  only  say 
that  the   doctor,   my  friend,   is   an   educated, 


24  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

level-headed,  noble  man.  He  felt  sure  that  he 
detected  undoubted  tokens  of  his  mother's 
presence.  If  such  a  thing  is  ever  possible, 
surely  this  is  the  explanation  most  simple 
and  natural 

V.  The  only  other  case  I  shall  be  able  to 
find  room  for  in  this  chapiter  is  a  genuine  ghost 
story,  all  the  better  for  my  purpose  because  it 
is  simple  and  clear  cut  in  every  jDarticular.  It 
is  perfectly  authentic,  and  true  beyond  any 
sort  of  question. 

The  lady  who  furnishes  me  the  facts  is  a 
parishioner,  and  a  distant  connection.  In  the 
year  1859,  Mrs.  S.  and  Mrs.  C.  were  living  in 
two  different  towns  in  the  State  of  Maine. 
Both  were  Methodists,  and  the  husband  of 
Mrs.  C.  was  a  clergyman  of  that  denomination. 
My  brother,  at  one  time,  was  well  acquainted 
with  him,  and  the  family  was  related  to  my 
brother's  wife.  At  this  time,  in  1859,  Mrs.  C. 
was  ill  with  dropsy,  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  S.,  was 
visiting  her.  They  both  well  knew  that  Mrs. 
C.  could  not  live  for  long,  and  that  this  was  to 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES.  25 

ho  their  last  meeting"  in  the  hody.  One  clay 
they  were  speaking  of  the  then  new  and 
strange  beHef  of  spirituaHsm,  when  Mrs.  C. 
said,  "  Mary,  if  it  is  true,  and  it  is  a  possible 
thing,  I  will  come  to  yon  after  my  death." 

The  day  following,  Mrs.  S.  returned  to  her 
home,  in  another  part  of  the  state.  Some 
weeks  passed  by ;  it  was  noAv  October  4.  Mr. 
S.  was  away  from  home,  and  Mrs.  S.  was  alone 
with  her  two  daughters.  No  one  was  on  the 
premises  except  a  farm-hand,  who  slept  in 
another  part  of  the  house.  As  is  the  common 
custom  in  these  country  towns  in  Maine,  the 
daughters  had  gone  to  bed  early,  and  were 
asleep.  They  were  both  awakened  out  of  their 
sleep  by  their  mother,  who  came  and  told  them 
that  their  Aunt  Melinda  was  dead,  for  she  had 
just  seen  her  standing  in  the  doorway,  in  her 
nightdress.  They  noted  the  time,  and  it  was 
9.50  P.M. 

In  those  days  there  were  no  telegraphs. 
The  mails,  even,  were  very  irregular,  and  the 
post-office  was  four    miles   away.      They  had 


26  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES. 

heard  nothing  to  make  them  think  that  their 
aunt  was  any  nearer  death  than  she  had  been 
for  a  long  time.  Three  days  after,  i.  e.,  on 
October  7,  news  came  that  Mrs.  C.  had  passed 
away  on  the  evening  of  October  4,  after  being 
dressed  for  bed.  At  9.30  they  had  left  her, 
for  a  few  moments,  sitting  comfortably  in  her 
chair.  At  10  they  returned  and  found  her 
dead,  and  they  said  she  looked  as  though  she 
had  been  dead  for  some  minutes.  Of  course, 
when  they  sent  this  news,  they  knew  nothing 
of  the  fact  that,  by  some  subtle  express,  they 
had  been  anticipated  by  at  least  three  days. 

I  am  well  aware  of  the  policy  of  the  Psychical 
Society,  and  that  the  attempt  is  made  to  explain 
such  appearances  by  supposing  that  the  dying 
friend  is  able  telepathically  to  impress,  not  ideas 
only,  but  images  on  the  minds  of  distant  friends, 
so  producing  the  effect  of  an  objective  vision. 
Indeed,  I  am  in  sympathy  with  this  attitude  on 
the  part  of  the  society.  Let  telepathy  and  all 
other  well-established  theories  be  strained  to 
the  utmost.     We  will  go  further  for  explana- 


PSYCUICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.  27 

tions  only  when  we  have  to.  But  there  are 
some  who  think  that  these  theories  are  abeady 
bemg  overweighted.  No  matter.  Let  them 
be.  For  if  they  break  down  at  last,  and  compel 
us  to  go  further,  some  other  theory  will  come  as 
a  necessity  ;  and  the  proof  at  last  will  seem  all 
the  more  forcible  because  the  conclusion  was 
not  jumped  at,  but  came  when  all  other  explana- 
tions had  proven  futile. 

Here,  then,  I  stop  for  the  present.  Not  a 
third  of  my  authentic  cases  have  been  even 
alluded  to.  Many  of  the  most  striking  still 
remain ;  for  I  wished  to  begin  as  near  the  com- 
monplace as  possible,  and  so  advance  from  the 
less  to  the  more  complex  and  difficult.  If  it 
shall  seem  best,  some  more  of  my  stories  may 
be  told  later  on. 

!N'OTE. — 1  have  not  thought  best  to  give  names,  but  I  am  in 
possession  of  names,  dates,  facts  of  every  kind,  sufficient  to 
make  these  what  would  be  called  legal  evidence  in  a  court  of 
justice. 


28  PbYCHiaS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Of  the  truth  of  what  I  shall  here  relate,  I 
am  as  certam  as  I  am  of  any  fact  in  my  own 
personal  history.  I  select  typical  specimens 
out  of  a  large  number.  Many,  and  some  of 
them  of  the  most  remarkable  kind,  cannot  yet 
be  told,  because  they  are  so  very  personal  ir. 
their  nature ;  and  yet,  to  those  Avho  know  these 
they  are  naturally  the  most  striking  of  all. 

The  first  case,  which  I  shall  now  detail,  is  so 
profusely  authenticated  that  it  would  be  ac- 
cepted as  absolutely  conclusive  evidence,  even 
in  a  matter  of  life  and  death,  in  any  court  in 
Christendom.  I  shall  tell  the  story  in  my  own 
words,  but  I  have  in  my  possession  eight  separ- 
ate accounts  of  eio  lit  livino-  witnesses.  To  these 
accounts  are  attached  the  autograph  signatures 
of  their  authors,  and  these  are  witnessed  to  by 
others    who  know    them.     With    two    of    the 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEOBIES.  29 

principal  ones  I  am  personally  acquainted,  and 
can  vouch  for  both  their  intelligence  and  truth- 
fulness. I  shall  not  give  the  real  names,  for 
all  these  people  are  still  living,  and  investigators 
more  zealous  than  wise  might  subject  them  to 
personal  annoyance. 

The  events  now  to  be  narrated  occurred  in 
the  year  1864,  and  in  a  town  not  forty  miles 
from  Boston.  The  persons  chiefly  concerned 
are  these  :  A  Mrs.  C,  who  had  been  three  times 
married  ;  a  son,  a  young  man,  child  of  the  first 
marriage  (I  shall  speak  of  him  by  his  first 
name,  Charles) ;  two  sons  by  the  second  mar- 
riage, William  and  Joshua,  aged  respectively 
sixteen  and  thirteen  ;  and  Mrs.  D.,  the  one  who 
played  the  principal  part,  and  who  tells  the 
principal  story.  All  these,  together  with  the 
other  witnesses,  are  still  living,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  two  boys  William  and  Joshua, 
around  whose  fate  the  story  revolves. 

On  March  25,  1864,  Mrs.  C.  went  into  Bos- 
ton for  the  day.  Her  son  AYilliam  had  been  at 
work  in  a  wholesale  drug  house  in  Boston,  but 


30  PSTCIIICS  :  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES. 

for  some  time  preceding  this  date  had  been 
engaged  with  a  similar  firm  in  Portland,  Me., 
during  the  refitting  of  the  Boston  store,  which 
had  been  burned.  On  this  day,  while  his 
mother  was  absent,  he  came  back  from  Port- 
land, and  was  to  return  to  his  former  position 
on  the  following  Monday.  This  day,  March 
25,  was  a  Friday.  He  reached  home  about  two 
o'clock  P.M.  Not  finding  his  mother,  he, 
with  his  brother  Joshua,  started  for  the  station, 
expecting  to  meet  her  as  she  came  out  on  the 
five  o'clock  train.  But  the  mother  was  de- 
layed, and  did  not  reach  home  till  two  hours 
later.  She  was  met  by  a  friend  of  the  boys, 
who  told  her  that  William  had  got  home  from 
Portland.  But  when  she  reached  the  house 
the  boys  were  not  there.  The  last  trace  that 
was  ever  found  of  them  alive  was  the  fact  that 
they  had  started  for  the  station  to  meet  their 
mother  on  the  arrival  of  the  five  o'clock  train. 
At  first  the  mother  consoled  herself  by  think- 
ing that  they  must  have  met  some  friends,  and 
had  been  detained  by  them.     But  when  bed- 


PSYCHICS  :  FACTS  AND  THEOEIES.  31 

time  came  and  they  did  not  return,  she  became 
very  anxious,  and  passed  a  sleepless  night. 
At  this  time  her  husband,  the  stepfather  to 
the  boys,  was  in  the  army,  and  she  had  to  rely 
on  her  own  resources. 

The  next  morning  she  and  the  elder  son, 
Charles,  began  to  make  inquiries.  They  not 
only  searched  the  town,  but  drove  to  neighbor- 
ing towns,  searching  every  place  to  which  it 
seemed  at  all  likely  that  they  might  have  gone. 
Recruiting  camps  were  visited,  as  it  was 
thought  possible  that  curiosity  might  have  led 
them  on  some  such  expedition.  But  about  five 
P.M.  (this  being  Saturday)  they  returned,  and 
reported  to  the  neighbors  that  no  trace  had  been 
found.  The  neighbors  then  offered  their  ser- 
vices, and  started  out  in  various  directions,  as 
their  own  ideas  might  guide  them.  But  all 
efforts  proved  in  vain.  Then  they  came  to 
the  mother,  and  asked  if  she  had  anything  else 
to  suggest.  She  replied  that,  if  her  husband 
were  at  home,  she  should  have  the  pond 
searched,  for  she  felt  sure  they  must  be  some- 


32  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

where  where  they  could  not  get  home,  or  they 
woiikl  not  have  stayed  away  so  long. 

But  everybody  thought  it  most  unlikely 
that  they  were  in  the  pond,  and  this  for  two 
reasons.  In  the  first  place,  they  were  timid 
about  being  on  the  water  ;  and  in  the  second 
place,  being  in  March,  it  was  too  cold  for  them 
to  think  of  any  such  thing  as  swimming  or 
rowing.  On  Sunday  evening,  however,  to 
satisfy  the  mother,  and  in  order  that  nothing 
might  be  left  untried,  they  began  to  search  the 
pond,  and  kept  on  until  the  darkness  compelled 
them  to  postpone  their  labors.  On  Monday 
morning  early,  the  engine  and  church  bells 
were  rung,  and  the  citizens  were  called  together 
to  organize  a  systematic  search  of  the  pond. 
Grappling  irons  were  used,  and  cannon  were 
fired  over  all  the  places  where  it  seemed  pos- 
sible that  the  bodies  might  be.  Still  no  trace 
was  discovered. 

Such  was  the  situation  of  affairs  when,  at 
about  ten  o'clock  in  the  forenoon,  Mrs.  D.,  one 
of  the  neighbors,  called  on  Mrs.  C,  the  mother 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXU  TUEUUIES.  'do 

of  the  boys,  to  show  her  sympathy  and  ask 
if  there  was  anything  she  could  do.  By  this 
time  every  known  resource  had  been  exhausted. 
So,  as  a  last  resort,  the  mother  asked  Mrs.  D. 
if  she  would  not  go  to  Boston  and  consult  a 
medium.  It  is  miportant  here  to  note  that  she 
was  not  a  spiritualist,  but  was  a  believer  in 
Evangelical  Christianity,  and  had  never  had 
anything  to  do  with  spiritualism.  She  turned 
to  this  as  a  last  desperate  resource,  because  in 
despair  of  help  from  any  other  quarter. 

It  must  also  be  noted  that  Mrs.  D.  had  no 
faith  in  it,  and  had  never  consulted  a  medium 
in  all  her  life.  So,  although  she  had  offered 
her  services  as  being  willing  to  do  anything  she 
could,  she  tried  to  beg  off  from  this,  as  being 
both  a  disagreeable  and  hopeless  errand.  But 
as  Mrs.  C.  urged  it  so  strongly,  and  said  she 
wished  her,  and  no  one  else,  to  go,  she  at  last 
and  most  reluctantly  consented. 

She  reached  Boston  at  twelve  o'clock  noon. 

Meantime,  and  with  more  efficient  grappling 

irons,  the  search  of  the  pond  was  continued, 

3 


M  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

but  with  no  results.  On  arriving  in  town,  and 
not  knowing  which  way  to  turn,  since  she  was 
not  acquainted  with  a  single  medium,  she  Avent 
(as  some  one  had  advised  her  to  do)  to  the 
office  of  the  Banner  of  Lights  the  spiritualist 
paper.  They  directed  her  to  a  place  near  Court 
Street.  The  medium  here  was  engaged,  and 
could  not  see  her.  But  the  man  who  answered 
the  door  sent  her  to  another  one  in  Dix  Place. 
This  one  also  was  engaged,  and  could  not  see 
her.  But  here  they  told  her  to  go  to  a  Mrs.  Y. 
on  Washinofton  Street  near  Common  Street. 
By  this  time  it  was  about  three  o'clock.  A 
sitter  was  just  leaving,  and  Mrs.  Y.  said  she 
was  too  tired  to  give  any  more  sittings  that 
day.  But  when  she  found  that  her  visitor  was 
from  out  of  town,  and  that  the  next  day  would 
be  too  late,  she  said  that  if  she  would  wait  long 
enough  for  her  to  take  a  little  rest,  she  would  see 
what  she  could  do.  Nothino:  was  said  that  could 
give  her  the  slightest  clue.  Indeed,  nothing 
could  be  said,  for  no  one  had  a  clue,  and  it 
was  a  clue  they  all  were  in  search  of.     It  is 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  ASl)  TUEOlilES.  35 

important  here  to  note  another  thing.  Up 
to  this  time  Mrs.  Y.,  the  medium,  had  never 
been  in  the  town  where  the  boys  resided. 

When  the  medium  came  again  into  the 
room,  she  walked  directly  to  the  fireplace  and 
stood  with  her  back  to  Mrs.  D.  Then,  before 
either  of  them  had  spoken  a  word,  by  way  of 
preliminary,  she  said,  "  They  went  east  before 
they  went  west."  The  railroad  station  is  east 
from  the  house  in  which  they  lived,  and  the 
pond  is  west.  Then  she  added,  "  They  saw 
the  fire,  and  so  went  to  the  water."  It  was 
afterwards  found  that  some  men  were  burning 
brush  near  the  lake.  So  knowing  it  would  be 
some  time  before  the  next  train,  it  is  supposed 
that,  boylike,  they  were  attracted  by  the  fire, 
and  went  to  see  what  was  going  on.  The 
medium  then  went  on  to  speak  of  a  boathouse 
with  a  hole  in  its  side.  This  was  not  mind- 
reading,  because  Mrs.  D.  knew  nothing  of 
there  being  any  boathouse  or  boat.  She  con- 
tinued and  described  a  boat, — "  a  narrow  boat, 
painted    black."     Then   she   cried  out,    '^  Oh, 


36  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOEIES. 

dear,  it  was  never  intended  that  more  than  one 
person  should  get  into  it  at  a  time  !  "  She 
told  hoAv  the  boys  went  through  the  hole  in  the 
side  of  the  boathouse,  found  the  boat,  got  into 
it,  and  pulled  out  onto  the  Avater.  She  said 
they  had  gone  but  a  very  little  way  before  the 
younger  brother  fell  overboard ;  then  the  older 
one,  in  trying  to  save  him,  also  fell  into  the 
water.  Then  she  added,  "  The  place  where 
they  are  is  muddy,  and  they  could  not  come  to 
the  surface.  Why,"  said  she,  "  it  is  not  the 
main  lake  where  they  are,  but  the  shallow  part 
which  connects  with  the  main  lake,  and  they 
are  so  near  the  shore  that  if  it  were  not  this 
time  of  the  year  [March],  you  could  almost 
walk  in  and  pick  them  up."  She  spoke  of  the 
citizens'  interest  in  seeking  for  them,  but  said, 
"  They  will  not  find  them ;  they  go  too  far 
from  the  shore.  They  [the  bodies]  are  on  the 
left  of  the  boathouse,  a  few  feet  from  the  land." 

Mrs.  D.  then  said,  "  If  they  are  in  the  water, 
they  Avill  be  found  before  I  can  reach  home." 

The  medium  replied,  "  No,  they  will  not  be 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  37 

found  before  you  get  there ;  you  will  have  to 
go  and  tell  them  where  I  say  they  are,  and 
then  they  Avill  be  found  witliin  five  minutes 
after  you  reach  the  lake."  Then  she  made 
Mrs.  D.  promise  to  go  with  them  to  the  lake, 
and  added,  "  They  are  very  near  together. 
After  finding  one,  you  will  quickly  find  the 
other." 

In  spite  of  all  that  Mrs.  Y.  had  said,  Mrs. 
D.  was  still  as  incredulous  as  before.  But 
she  had  undertaken  to  see  it  through,  and  so 
started  for  home.  She  arrived  at  five  o'clock. 
By  this  time  it  was  known  on  what  sort  of 
errand  she  had  gone  to  Boston,  and  a  crowd 
of  the  curious  and  interested  was  at  the  station. 
As  she  stepped  on  to  the  platform,  a  gentleman 
asked,  "What  did  the  medium  tell  you?"  She 
replied  with  the  question,  "  Haven't  you  found 
them  yet  ?  "  When  they  said  they  had  not,  she 
delivered  her  message.  Immediately  they  took 
a  carriage  and  started  for  the  lake.  As  they 
came  in  sight  of  the  place,  Mrs.  D.  recognized 
the  boathouse,  with  the  hole  in  the  side,  as  the 


88  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  A^'U  THEORIES. 

medium  had  described  it.  The  ^^  narrow  boat 
painted  black  "  had  also  been  found  drifting  in 
another  part  of  the  lake.  So  by  this  time,  Mrs. 
D.  began  to  wonder  if  the  rest  might  not  be 
true.  But  no  one  in  the  crowd  seemed  to  have 
any  confidence  in  the  medium's  statements. 
They  felt  that  they  had  thoroughly  searched 
the  pond,  and  that  the  matter  was  settled. 
But  they  went  on,  and  prepared  to  follow 
Mrs.  D.'s  directions. 

She  stood  on  the  shore  while  tAvo  boats  put 
off  in  Avhich  were  men  with  their  grappling 
irons.  In  one  boat  was  the  elder  brother,  or 
half-brother,  of  the  missing  boys.  He  was 
holding  one  of  the  grappling  irons;  and  after 
only  three  or  four  strokes  of  the  oars,  he  ex- 
claimed, "  I  have  hold  of  something ! "  The 
boat  was  stopped,  and  he  at  once  brought  to 
the  surface  the  body  of  the  older  boy,  William. 
In  a  few  minutes  more,  and  close  to  the  same 
place,  the  body  of  the  other  boy,  Joshua,  was 
found.  The  place  was  shallow  and  muddy,  as 
the  medium  had  said ;  and,  held  by  the  mud. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TUEOBIES.  39 

the  bodies  had  not  risen  to  the  surface,  as 
otherwise  they  might  have  done.  The  bodies 
were  now  placed  together  in  a  carriage,  and 
before  six  o'clock  they  were  in  their  mother's 
housa 

At  the  close  of  the  Boston  interview,  Mrs. 
D.  asked  the  medium  from  what  source  she  o'ot 
her  claimed  information,  and  she  said,  "  The 
boys'  father  told  me."  The  boys'  father  was 
the  second  husband  of  Mrs.  C,  and  had  been 
"  dead  "  for  several  years,  while  the  mother 
was  then  living  with  her  third  husband. 

Here,  then,  is  the  story.  I  have  in  my  pos- 
session the  account  as  given  by  Mrs.  D.,  who 
is  still  living  and  is  a  personal  acquaintance. 
I  have  the  account  of  her  daughter,  who  well 
remembers  it  all.  I  have  also  the  account  of 
Mrs.  C,  the  mother  ;  of  Mr.  C,  the  father-in- 
law  ;  of  the  elder  brother,  Charles  ;  of  the 
sister  of  Mrs.  D. ;  of  the  lady  who  was  at  that 
time  postmistress  of  the  town  ;  of  a  man  who 
came  into  Boston  after  grappling  irons  with 
which  to  search  the  lake ;    and  also  of  two  or 

>       »;    THE 

UNIVERSITY 


40  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

three  other  persons  whose  names,  if  given, 
would  be  recognized  as  connected  with  one 
of  the  distinguished  men  in  American  history. 

One  other  item  is  of  sufficient  interest  to 
make  it  worth  mentioning.  The  father-in-law 
of  the  boys  tells  that  one  day,  after  his  return 
from  the  army,  the  medium,  Mrs.  Y.,  visited 
the  town  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  and  came 
to  his  house.  She  wished  to  visit  the  place 
where  the  bodies  of  the  boys  were  found. 
When  within  a  short  distance  of  the  lake,  she 
asked  him  to  fall  back.  She  then  became  en- 
tranced ;  and  picking  up  a  stone,  she  stood 
with  her  eyes  closed  and  back  to  the  water. 
Then  she  threw  the  stone  over  her  head,  and 
landed  it  in  the  precise  place  from  which  the 
bodies  were  taken. 

Mr.  C,  as  well  as  his  wife,  was  an  Evan- 
gelical in  his  creed,  and  had  never  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  mediums. 

Of  the  truth  of  these  occurrences,  as  thus 
related,  there  can  be  no  rational  doubt.  As  an 
explanation,  telepathy  is  excluded,  for  nobody 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.  41 

living  was  aware  of  the. facts.  Clairvoyance 
seems  to  be  excluded,  for  Mrs.  D.  did  not  tell 
the  medium  where  she  was  fi'om  nor  what  she 
wanted  to  find  out,  and  clairvoyance  requires 
that  the  mind  should  be  directed  or  sent  on 
some  definite  errand  to  some  particular  place. 
What,  then,  is  left  ?  Will  the  reader  decide  ? 
The  incidents  I  am  next  to  relate  occurred 
two  years  ago  this  winter.  The  place  is  a 
large  city  in  a  neighboring  state.  The  three 
persons  concerned  are  a  doctor,  his  wife,  and 
one  of  his  patients.  The  story,  as  T  tell  it,  was 
given  me  by  the  wife.  She  was  an  old  school 
friend  of  some  of  my  personal  friends,  who 
hold  her  in  the  highest  esteem.  Her  husband 
I  have  never  seen ;  but  a  connection  of  mine 
was  once  a  patient  of  his,  and  speaks  of  him 
always  with  enthusiastic  admu^ation,  both  as  a 
man  and  a  physician.  He  is  a  doctor  of  the 
old  school,  inclined  to  be  a  sceptic,  and  had 
never  had  anything  whatever  to  do  with  me- 
diums. He  is  not  \4sionary,  and  this  was  his 
first  experience  out  of  the  normal. 


42  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

On  a  winter  night,  then,  two  years  ago,  he 
was  sound  asleep.  Being  very  weary,  and  in 
order  that  he  might  sleep  as  late  as  possible, 
the  green  holland  shade  of  his  own  window  was 
down  to  the  bottom,  and  there  was  no  way  by 
which  any  light  could  penetrate  his  room.  His 
wife  was  asleep  in  a  room  adjoining,  with  a 
door  open  between.  She  was  waked  out  of  a 
sound  sleep  by  hearing  him  call  her  name. 
She  opened  her  eyes,  and  saw  his  room  flooded 
with  a  soft,  yet  intense  yellowish  light.  She 
called,  and  said,  "What  is  that  light?"  He 
replied,  "  I  don't  know ;  come  in  and  see  !  " 
She  then  went  into  his  room,  and  saw  that  it 
was  full  of  this  light.  They  lighted  the  gas, 
but  the  other  light  was  so  much  stronger  that 
the  gas  flame  seemed  lost  in  it.  They  looked 
at  their  watches,  and  it  was  about  five  full 
minutes  before  it  had  faded  aAvay.  During 
this  time  he  explained  to  her  what  had  occurred. 
He  said  he  was  wakened  by  a  strong  light 
shining  directly  into  his  face.  At  the  same 
time,  on  opening  his  eyes,  he  saw  the  figure  of 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.  43 

a  woman  stunclm^'  at  the  foot  of  his  bed.  His 
first  thought  was  that  his  wife  had  come  in  and 
lighted  the  gas,  as  he  knew  she  intended  rising 
to  take  an  early  train  in  order  to  visit  his 
mother,  who  was  ill.  Being  very  tired  and 
needing  sleep,  he  was  about  to  reproach  her  for 
needlessly  waking  hini;  vrlien  he  saw  that  the 
figure,  from  which  now  all  the  light  seemed  to 
proceed,  was  not  his  wife.  By  this  time  he  was 
broad  awake,  and  sat  upright  in  bed  staring  at 
the  figure.  He  noticed  that  it  was  a  woman  in  a 
white  garment ;  and  looking  sharply,  he  recog- 
nized it,  as  he  thought,  as  one  of  his  patients 
who  was  very  ill.  Then  he  realized  that  this 
could  not  be  so,  and  that  if  any  one  was  in  the 
room,  it  must  be  an  intruder  who  had  no  right 
to  be  there.  Tv^ith  the  vague  thought  of  a 
possible  burglar  thus  disguised,  he  cprang  out 
of  bed  and  grasped  his  revolver,  which  he  was 
accustomed  to  have  near  at  hand.  This  brought 
him  face  to  face  with  the  fi<>:ure  not  three  feet 
away.  He  now  sav\^  every  detail  of  dress,  com- 
plexion, and   feature,   and   for  the  first  time 


44  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES, 

recognized  the  fact  that  it  was  not  a  being  of 
flesh  and  blood.  Then  it  was  that,  in  quite  an 
excited  manner,  he  called  his  wife,  hoping  that 
she  would  get  there  to  see  it  also.  But  the 
moment  he  called  her  name,  the  figure  disap- 
peared, leaving,  however,  the  intense  yellow 
light  behind,  and  which  they  both  observed  for 
five  minutes  by  the  watch  before  it  faded  out. 

The  next  day  it  was  found  that  one  of  his 
patients,  closely  resembling  the  figure  he  had 
seen,  had  died  a  few  minutes  before  he  saw  his 
vision, — had  died  calling  for  Mm. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  story,  like  the  first 
one  in  this  article,  is  perfectly  authentic  in 
every  particular.  There  is  no  question  as  to 
the  facts.  It  only  remains  to  find  a  theory 
that  wiU  explain  the  facts.  Was  it  a  telepath- 
ically  produced  vision,  caused  by  the  strong 
desire  of  the  dying  woman  to  see  her  physician  ? 
Or  was  it  the  woman  herself  coming  to  him  a 
few  moments  after  leaving  the  body  ?  I  leave 
my  readers  to  reply  for  themselves. 

I  will  now  relate  a  death  vision   that  has 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AlVI)  TllEOlUES.  45 

about  it  some  unusual  features.  These  visions, 
of  course,  are  very  common.  I  have  known 
many  that  were  striking ;  but  generally  there 
is  no  way  of  proving  that  they  are  not  entirely 
subjective.  The  dying  frequently  appear  to 
see  and  converse  with  their  friends  who  have 
preceded  them,  but  how  can  any  one  tell  that 
they  are  not  like  the  imaginings  of  those  in 
delirium  ?  I  have  in  my  collection  two  or  three 
that  have  about  them  certain  characteristics 
that  are  hard  to  explain  on  that  theory.  One 
of  the  best  is  the  following . 

In  a  neighboring  city  w^ere  two  little  girls, 
Jennie  and  Edith,  one  about  eight  years  of  age, 
and  the  other  but  a  little  older.  They  were 
schoolmates  and  intimate  friends.  In  June, 
1889,  both  were  taken  ill  .of  diphtheria.  At 
noon  on  Wednesday,  June  5,  Jennie  died. 
Then  the  parents  of  Edith,  and  her  physician 
as  well,  all  took  particular  pains  to  keep  from 
her  the  fact  that  her  little  playmate  was  gone. 
They  feared  the  effect  of  the  knowledge  on  her 
ow^n  condition.     To  prove  that  they  succeeded 


46  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES, 

and  that  she  did  not  know,  it  may  be  mentioned 
that  on  Saturday,  June  8,  at  noon,  just  before 
she  became  unconscious  of  all  that  was  passing 
about  her,  she  selected  two  of  her  photographs 
to  be  sent  to  Jennie,  and  also  told  her  attend- 
ants to  bid  her  good-bye. 

Right  here  is  the  important  point  to  be 
noticed  in  this  narration.  Dying  persons 
usually  see,  or  think  they  see,  those  and  only 
those  that  they  know  have  passed  away. 
Edith  did  not  know  that  Jennie  had  gone,  and 
so,  in  the  ordinary  or  imaginative  vision,  she 
would  not  have  been  expected  to  fancy  her 
present. 

She  died  at  half -past  six  o'clock  on  the  even- 
ing of  Saturday,  June  8.  She  had  roused  and 
bidden  her  friends  good-bye,  and  was  talking  of 
dying,  and  seemed  to  have  no  fear.  She  ap- 
peared to  see  one  and  another  of  the  friends 
she  knew  were  dead.  So  far  it  was  like  the  com- 
mon cases.  But  now  suddenly,  and  with  every 
appearance  of  great  surprise,  she  turned  to  her 
father,    and    cxcbimed,    "  Why,  papa,    I  am 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TUEOIUES.  47 

going  to  take  Jennie  with  me  !  "  Then  she 
added,  "  Why  papa  !  Why,  papa  !  !  You  did 
not  tell  me  that  Jennie  was  here  ! "  And  im- 
mediately she  reached  out  her  arms  as  if  in 
welcome,  and  said,  "  0  Jennie,  I'm  so  glad 
you  are  here." 

Now,  I  am  familiar  with  the  mechanism  of 
the  eye  and  the  scientific  theories  of  vision.  I 
know  also  very  well  whatever  the  world  knows 
about  visions.  But  I  submit  that  here  is  some- 
thing not  easily  accounted  for  on  the  theory  of 
hallucination.  It  was  firmly  fixed  in  her  mind 
that  Jennie  was  still  ahve,  for  within  a  fcAV 
hours  she  had  arranged  to  have  a  photograph 
sent  her.  This  also  comes  out  in  the  fact  of 
her  great  astonishment  when  her  friend  appears 
among  those  she  was  not  at  all  surprised  to 
see,  because  she  knew  they  had  died.  It  goes, 
then,  beyond  the  ordinary  death  vision,  and 
presents  a  feature  that  demands,  as  an  adequate 
explanation,  something  more  than  the  easy  one 
of  saying  she  only  imagined  it. 

I  have  read,  of  course,  a  good  many  stories 


48  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  TIIEOEIES. 

telling  of  the  apparent  seeing  of  "  spirit " 
forms  on  the  part  of  animals.  One  such,  and 
a  perfectly  authentic  one,  I  have  in  my  collec- 
tion. The  friend  who  gave  it  me  I  will  call 
Miss  Z.  I  have  known  her  for  seventeen  years, 
and  feel  as  sure  of  the  truth  of  her  narrative 
as  though  I  had  been  in  her  place.  Without 
any  further  preface,  I  will  tell  her  brief 
story. 

In  the  spring  of  1885,  on  a  certain  evening, 
she  was  alone  in  the  house.  All  the  family, 
even  to  the  servants,  had  gone  out.  It  was 
about  eight  o'clock,  but  several  gas  jets  were 
burning,  so  that  the  room  was  light  through- 
out. It  was  in  the  parlor,  a  long  room  run- 
ing  the  whole  length  of  the  house.  Near  the 
back  of  the  parlor  stood  the  piano.  Miss  Z. 
was  sitting  at  the  piano,  practicing  at  a  difficult 
musical  exercise,  playing  it  over  and  over,  and 
naturally  with  her  mind  intent  on  this  alone. 
She  had  as  her  only  companion  a  little  skye 
terrier,  a  great  pet,  and  which,  never  having 
been  whipped,  was  apparently  afraid  of  nothing 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.  -49 

in  all  the  world.     He  was  comfortably  placed 

in  an  easy-chair  behind  the  piano-stool. 

Such,  then,  was  the  situation  when  Miss   Z. 

was  startled  by  hearing  a  sudden  growl  from 

the  terrier,  as  if  giving  an  alarm   of  danger. 

She  looked  up  suddenly  to  see  what  the  matter 

was,  when,  at  the  farther  end  of  the  room,  the 

front  of  the  parlor,  there  appeared  to  be  a  sort 

of  mist  stretching  itself  from  the  door  half-way 

across  the  room.     As  she  watched  it,  this  mist, 

Avhicli  was  gray,  seemed  to   shape  itself  into 

three  forms.     The  heads  and  shoulders  were 

quite  clearly  outlined  and  distinct,  though  they 

appeared  to  have  loose  wrappings  about  them. 

From   the   height    and  general    slope    of  the 

shoulders  of  one,  she   thought  she  recognized 

the  figure  of  a  favorite  aunt  who  had  died  a  few 

years  before.     The  middle  figure  of  the  three 

was  much  shorter,  and  made  her  think  of  her 

grandmother,  who  had  been  dead  for  a  good 

many  years.     The  third  she  did  not  recognize 

at  all.     The  faces  she   did  not  see  distinctly 

enough  so  as  to  feel  in  any  way  sure  about  them. 

4 


50  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

The  dog,  always  before  very  brave,  now 
seemed  overcome  with  terror.  He  growled 
fiercely  several  times,  and  then  jumped  trem- 
blins:  from  his  chair,  and  hid  himself  under  a 
large  sofa,  utterly  refusing  to  be  coaxed  out. 
His  mistress  had  never  known  him  to  show 
fear  before  on  any  occasion  Avhatever. 

Miss  Z.  now  watched  the  figures,  while  they 
grew  more  and  more  indistinct,  and  at  last 
seemed  to  fade  through  the  closed  door  into 
the  front  hall.  When  they  had  disappeared, 
she  gave  her  attention  to  the  frightened  terrier. 
He  would  not  leave  his  hiding-place,  and  she 
was  obliged  to  move  the  sofa  and  carefully  lift 
the  trembling  little  creature  in  her  arms. 

Now,  the  only  remarkable  thing  about  this 
is,  of  course,  the  attitude  and  action  of  the 
dog.  The  "  spirits  "  did  not  seem  to  have 
come  for  anything.  They  said  nothing,  and 
did  nothing  of  any  importance.  But — and 
this  is  where  the  problem  comes  in — what  did 
the  dog  see  ?  If  his  mistress  had  seen  the 
figures  first  and  had  shown  any  fear,  it  might 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TREOEIES.  51 

reasonably  be  said  that  her  fear  was  contagious, 
and  that  the  dog  was  frightened  because  she 
was.  But  the  dog  was  the  first  discoverer ; 
the  discoverer — of  what  ?  If  there  had  been 
nothing  there  to  see,  the  dog  would  have  seen 
nothing.  Are  dogs  subject  to  hallucinations  ? 
Even  if  they  are,  and  though  it  were  a  sub- 
jective vision  on  the  dog's  part,  Iioav  does  it 
happen  that  Miss  Z.  also  sees  it  ?  AYould  she 
mistake  a  dog's  subjective  vision  for  the  figure 
of  her  aunt  ? 

Turn  it  about  as  you  will,  it  is  a  curious 
experience,  and  one  worth  the  reader's  finding 
an  explanation  for,  if  he  can. 

The  limits  of  this  chapter  will  make  room  for 
only  one  more  story.  The  lady  who  had  this 
experience  is  the  one  who  gives  us  the  account 
of  it,  though  I  tell  it  in  my  own  words.  She 
was  a  schoolmate  of  my  brother,  and  her  char- 
acter and  veracity  are  beyond  question.  In 
June,  1886,  she  was  a  patient  in  the  family  of 
a  physician  in  a  well-known  city  in  a  neighbor- 
ing state.     She  was  suffermg  much  from  mental 


52  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  ANL  THEORIES. 

depression,  feeling  assured  in  her  own  mind 
that  she  had  an  ovarian  tumor.  On  this  par- 
ticular day,  she  was  lying  alone  in  her  room, 
unusually  oppressed  by  foreboding  fears.  Ly- 
ing thus,  absorbed  in  thoughts  of  her  own  con- 
dition, she  suddenly  became  conscious  as  of  an 
open  map  of  the  United  States  being  spread 
before  her.  Her  attention  was  particularly 
directed  to  Virginia,  and  then  westward  to,  as 
she  then  thought,  Ohio.  At  the  same  time  she 
heard  the  name  "  McDowell."  At  once  she 
thought  of  General  McDowell,  as  the  only  one 
she  knew  of  by  that  name.  But  a  calm,  gentle 
voice  seemed  to  reply  to  her  unspoken  thought, 
"  No,  I  am  not  General  McDoAvell,  but  a  phy- 
sician. I  was  the  first  advocate  and  practi- 
tioner of  ovarian  surgery.  By  the  urgent 
request  of  your  friends,  I  have  examined  your 
case  very  carefully.  Eest  assured,  madam, 
your  malady  is  not  of  that  character.  In  time 
you  will  regain  your  health,  but  never  be  very 
strong." 

With  a  feeling  of  awe,  gratitude,  and  wonder. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.  53 

which,  she  says,  she  could  not  attempt  to 
express,  she  rose  from  the  couch  on  which  she 
was  lying,  and  went  at  once  to  the  doctor's 
office  in  another  part  of  the  house.  At  once 
she  related  what  had  occurred,  and  asked, 
"  Am  I  right  ?  "  The  physician,  a  lady,  went 
to  her  library  and  took  down  her  Medical 
Encyclopaedia.  From  this  she  read,  "  Ephraim 
McDowell,  born  in  Virginia,  settled  in  Ken- 
tucky. He  performed  the  first  operation  in 
ovarian  surgery  that  is  recorded  in  this 
country." 

She  was  correct,  therefore,  in  every  partic- 
ular, except  the  substituting  Ohio  for  Ken- 
tucky, and  this  is  quite  natural,  as  it  is  the 
next  adjoining  state. 

Several  points  now  it  is  important  carefully 
to  note. 

In  the  first  place,  this  lady  has  had  many 
psychic  experiences,  others  of  which  I  hope  to 
obtain. 

In  the  second  place,  until  these  began,  she 
was  a  complete  sceptic  as  to  continued  exist- 


54  PSYCItlCS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

ence.  She  tells  me  that  she  was  a  most  un- 
willing convert,  and  only  gave  in  when  com- 
pelled to  by  her  own  undoubted  experiences. 

Again,  she  has  never  been  surrounded  by 
any  atmosphere  of  belief  in  these  things;  for 
even  now  most  of  her  friends  and  relatives  are 
violently  opposed  to  everything  of  the  sort,  and 
she  has  had  to  suffer  much  because  she  could 
not  help  but  believe. 

Once  more,  I  have  been  in  recent  correspond- 
ence with  the  physician  in  whose  house  she 
was  at  the  time.  This  physician  completely 
confirms  all  the  facts,  and  testifies  in  the  most 
emphatic  way  to  the  noble  character  and  un- 
questioned veracity  of  her  patient.  And  yet, 
though  she  offers  no  other  theory,  she  is 
strongly  opposed  to  any  explanation  that  calls 
for  the  agency  of  any  supernormal  intelligence. 
This,  however,  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  she 
has  always  been  bitterly  prejudiced  against 
everything  of  the  kind. 

And  lastly,  both  the  physician  and  her 
patient  are  perfectly  assured  that  the  name  of 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXI)  THEORIES.  55 

Dr.  McDowell  and  his  work  as  a  surgeon  were 
entirely  unknown  to  the  teller  o£  this  expe- 
rience at  the  time  when  the  voice  was  heard. 

I  have  many  other  equally  puzzling  cases 
left,  but  these  are  enough  for  the  present 
installment.  Who  will  find  a  theory  that  does 
not  lead  us  into  the  invisible  ? 


56  FSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 


CHAPTER  III. 

After  the  preceding  chapters  I  need  waste 
no  time  in  words  of  preface  or  introduc- 
tion. Concerning  these  I  shall  now  relate,  I 
only  wish  to  say,  as  I  have  already  said  con- 
cerning all  the  rest,  that  I  think  I  know  they 
are  genuine.  These  things  took  place.  They 
took  place  in  the  conditions  and  in  the  jn^ecise 
way  which  I  shall  describe.  I  shall  refrain 
from  dogmatizing  as  to  theories  of  explanation. 
Such  dogmatism  never  convinces.  People  will 
accept  a  new  and  unfamiliar  truth  only  when 
driven  to  it  by  overwhelming  force  of  evidence. 
I  seek  only  to  help  in  the  accumulation  of 
evidence  ;  the  truth — whatever  it  be — will  at 
last  make  itself  manifest  to  the  minds  of  all 
reasonable  men. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.  57 

For  the  sake  of  variety,  and  to  hint  at  the 
breadth  of  the  field  now  open  for  investigation, 
I  will  begin  with  a  case  unHke  any  of  those  so 
far  presented. 

There  is  a  certain  class  of  sensitives  or  psych- 
ics who  claim  to  possess  what  is  called  psych- 
ometric power.  Suppose  it  is  a  lady.  She 
will  take  in  her  hand  a  letter,  and,  without 
reading  a  word  of  it  or  even  looking  at  it,  she 
receives  from  it  certain  impressions,  w^hieh  she 
states.  Sometimes  she  goes  into  such  detail  as 
to  the  contents  of  the  letter  and  the  character 
and  personality  of  the  writer  as  is  utterly  impos- 
sible on  any  theory  of  guess-work.  Neither, 
in  my  judgment,  is  it  to  be  classed  with  clair- 
voyance; for  she  does  not  read  the  letter  nor 
even  seem  to  see  the  writer.  These  phenomena 
of  psychometry  seem  to  constitute  a  class  by 
themselves.  At  times  it  is  not  a  letter  that 
the  lady  holds  in  her  hands,  but  any  article 
or  substance  whatever.  But  in  any  case,  the 
article  so  held  appears  to  give  unpressions  of  so 
precise  a  nature  that  the  psychic  reads  the  story 


58  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

of  its  past,  calls  up  distant  persons  and  scenes 
— distant  both  in  space  and  in  time.  In  pres- 
ence of  such  facts,  one  finds  himself  wonder- 
ing if  even  inanimate  nature — if  any  part  of 
nature  is  inanimate — does  not  carry  with  it  a 
record  or  memory  of  all  that  ever  concerned  it. 
But  I  will  suppress  any  tendency  to  dream,  and 
turn  to  my  fact. 

On  a  certain  morning  I  visited  a  psychom- 
etrist.  Several  experiments  were  made.  I  will 
relate  only  one,  as  a  good  specimen  of  what  has 
occurred  in  my  presence  more  than  once.  The 
lady  was  not  entranced  or,  so  far  as  T  could 
see,  in  any  other  than  her  normal  condition. 
I  handed  her  a  letter  which  I  had  recently 
received.  She  took  it,  and  held  it  in  her  right 
hand,  pressing  it  close,  so  as  to  come  into  as 
vital  contact  with  it  as  possible.  I  had  taken 
it  out  of  its  envelope,  so  that  she  might  touch 
it  more  effectively,  but  it  was  not  unfolded 
even  so  much  as  to  give  her  an  opportunity  to 
see  even  the  name.  It  was  written  by  a  man 
whom  she  had  never  seen,  and  of  whom  she  had 


PSYCHIC;S:  FACT^'S  AXD  THEORIES.  59 

never  heard.  After  holding  it  a  moment,  she 
said,  "  This  man  is  either  a  minister  or  a  law- 
yer ;  I  cannot  tell  which.  He  is  a  man  of  a 
good  deal  more  than  usual  intellectual  power ; 
and  yet,  he  has  never  met  with  any  such  suc- 
cess in  life  as  one  would  have  expected,  con- 
sidering his  natural  ability.  Something  has 
happened  to  thwart  him  and  interfere  Avith  his 
success.  At  the  present  time  he  is  suffering 
with  severe  illness  and  mental  depression.  He 
has  pain  here  (putting  her  hand  to  the  back  of 
her  head,  at  the  base  of  the  brain)." 

She  said  much  more,  describing  the  man  as 
well  as  I  could  have  done  it  myself.  But  I 
will  quote  no  more,  for  I  wish  to  let  a  few 
salient  points  stand  in  clear  outHne.  These 
points  I  will  number,  for  the  sake  of  clearness : — 

1.  She  tells  me  he  is  a  man,  though  she  has 
not  even  glanced  at  the  letter. 

2.  She  says  he  is  either  a  minister  or  a 
lawyer;  she  cannot  tell  which.  No  wonder, 
for  he  was  both;  that  is,  he  had  preached  for 
some  years,  then  had  left  the  pulpit,  studied 


60  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

law,  and  at  this  time  was  not  actively  engaged 
in  either  profession. 

3.  She  speaks  of  his  great  natural  abihty. 
This  was  true  in  a  most  marked  degree. 

4.  But  he  had  not  succeeded  as  one  would 
have  expected.  This  again  was  strikingly  true. 
Certain  things  had  happened — which  I  do  not 
feel  at  liberty  to  publish — which  had  broken 
off  his  career  in  the  middle  and  made  his  short 
life  seem  abortive. 

5.  She  says  he  is  ill  as  he  writes.  At  this 
very  time  he  Avas  at  the  house  of  a  friend, 
suffering  from  a  malarial  attack,  his  business 
broken  up,  and  his  mind  depressed  by  the 
thouQ'ht  of  his  life  failure. 

Now  this  lady  did  not  know  I  had  any  such 
friend  ;  and  of  all  these  different  facts  about 
him,  of  course  she  knew  absolutely  nothing. 
She  did  not  read  a  word  of  the  letter.  But 
(note  this  carefully)  even  though  she  had  read 
it  all,  it  would  have  told  her  only  the  one  fact 
that,  as  he  wrote,  he  was  not  well.  It  contained 
not  the  slighteot  allusion  to  any  of  the  others. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXU  TIIEOIUES.  Gl 

This  case  cannot  be  explained  by  clairvoyance, 
for  the  lady  did  not  possess  the  power.  Was 
it  guess-work  ?  One  case  might  be  so  explained. 
But  one  does  not  guess  after  this  fashion  very 
often.  So,  as  I  put  this  case  alongside  the 
many  others  which  I  know,  the  guess  theory 
becomes  too  improbable  for  one  moment's  seri- 
ous consideration. 

I  will  now  tell  the  story  of  my  first  sitting 
with  Mrs.  P.,  a  psychic  famous  in  the  annals 
of  psychical  research,  both  in  Boston  and  in 
London.  In  one  way  the  incidents  are  very 
slight,  but  for  that  very  reason  they  were  to 
me  all  the  more  striking ;  for  it  seems  to  me 
that  such  incidents  are  beyond  the  wildest 
theory  of  guess-work.  She  might  have  guessed 
a  great  many  things  about  me ;  but  that  she 
should  have  guessed  these  particidar  things, 
seems  to  me  most  wildly  improbable. 

This  sittino-  occurred  in  the  winter  of  1885. 
My  father  had  died  during  the  preceding  sum- 
mer, aged  ninetv  years  and  six  months.  Most 
of  his  life  had  been  spent  in  Maine.     He  had 


62  PSYCniCS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

never  lived  in  Boston,  and  there  is  no  conceiv- 
able way  by  which  Mrs.  P.  could  ever  have 
learned  about  him  any  other  than  the  most 
general  facts.  But  as  she  had  no  earthly 
reason  for  supposing  that  I  was  ever  going  to 
call  on  her^  I  do  not  know  why  she  should  have 
taken  the  trouble  to  learn  anything  about  him. 
Even  if  she  had  taken  such  trouble,  there  was 
no  one  in  the  city  who  could  have  told  her  these 
especial  facts.  They  were  not  known  outside 
of  one  or  two  members  of  my  own  family,  and 
at  this  time  no  member  of  my  family  had  ever 
seen  Mrs.  P. 

Such,  then,  was  the  condition  of  affairs 
when,  one  morning,  I  called  at  her  house.  She 
soon  became  entranced.  That  these  trances,  in 
her  case,  are  genuine,  there  is  no  shadow  of  a 
question  ;  and  when  she  returns  to  her  normal 
condition,  she  has  no  knowledge  of  anything 
that  has  been  said  or  done.  Her  "  control " 
said — what  is  common  enough — that  many 
"spirits"  were  present.  Among  them  he  sin- 
gled out  for  description  an  old  man.     This  de- 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOIUES.  63 

scription  was  general  only,  but  correct  so  far  as 
it  went ;  for  immediately  he  proceeded  to  tell 
me  it  was  my  father.  Then  he  added,  "He 
calls  you  Judson."  Soon  after  this,  as  though 
his  attention  had  just  been  turned  to  it,  he 
exclaimed  that  he  had  a  peculiar  bare  spot 
"  right  here."  (The  hand  of  the  psychic  was 
lifted  and  laid  on  the  right  side  of  the  top  of 
her  head,  about  where  the  parting  of  the  hair 
would  usually  be.) 

This  is  by  no  means  all  that  was  said  or  done, 
but  I  single  out  thus  these  two  tiny  facts,  so 
that  we  may  look  at  them  a  J'  Jle  by  themselves. 
As  to  this  matter  of  the  bare  spot  on  his  head  : 
Though  living  to  so  advanced  an  age,  my 
father  was  never  bald;  but  years  before  I  was 
born,  as  the  result  of  a  burn,  this  particular 
place  lost  its  hair.  It  was  about  one  inch  in 
width  and  two  or  three  inches  long,  running 
back  from  the  forehead  towards  the  crown.  He 
was  accustomed  to  part  his  hair  on  the  left 
side,  and  comb  it  over  this  bare  place.  Gen- 
erally,   therefore,    it  was    entirely    unnoticed. 


64  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

As  I  had  every  reason  to  suppose  that  Mrs. 
P.  had  never  seen  hmi^  this  struck  me  as  at  least 
worthy  of  remark. 

But  the  other  httle  matter  appears  to  me  still 
more  worthy  of  notice.  When  I  was  horn, 
away  up  in  the  middle  of  Maine,  I  had  a  half- 
sister,  my  father's  daughter,  who  was  then  liv- 
ing in  Massachusetts.  She  sent  home  a  re- 
quest that  I  be  named  Judson.  She  was  to  do 
for  me  certain  things,  provided  her  request  was 
granted.  So  I  got  my  middle  name ;  but  she 
died  suddenly  before  ever  returning  home,  and 
I  have  never  learned  the  reason  for  her  wish. 
The  only  important  thing  about  this  bit  of  auto- 
biography is  to  note  the  fact  that  (as  I  always 
supposed,  out  of  tenderness  for  the  memory  of 
a  favorite  daughter)  my  father,  all  through  my 
boyhood,  always  called  me  Judson,  though  all 
the  rest  of  the  family  uniformly  spoke  to  me, 
and  of  me,  by  my  first  name ;  and  (this  is 
worthy  of  note)  my  father  himself,  in  all  his 
later  years,  fell  into  the  habit  of  using  my  first 
name,  like  the  rest  of  the  family.      I  doubt. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  65 

therefore,  if  he  had  called  me  "  Judson  "  for  as 
many  as  fifteen  or  twenty  years  before  his  death. 
Why,  then,  does  the  "  control "  of  J\Irs.  P., 
after  describing  correctly  this  "  old  man,"  ex- 
claim, "  Why,  it  is  your  father  ;  he  calls  you 
Judson?  " 

Neither  one  of  these  things  was  consciously 
in  my  own  mind  at  the  time,  and  1  can  im- 
agine no  way  by  which  either  the  conscious 
or  unconscious  self  of  Mrs.  P.  could  ever  have 
found  them  out. 

A  very  little  thing.  Yes,  and  so  it  w  as  a 
very  little  thing  to  know  that  a  piece  of  amber, 
wdien  rubbed  with  silk,  would  attract  light 
bodies ;  but  this  little  thing  had  in  it  the  prom- 
ise and  potency  of  world-revolutionizing  dis- 
coveries. 

One  other  thing  occurred  at  this  same  sit- 
ting. Towards  its  close,  Mrs.  P.'s  ^'control" 
said  :  '^  Here  is  somebody  wdio  says  his  name  is 
John.  He  w^as  your  brother.  No,  not  your 
own  brother ;  he  was  your  half-brother." 
Then,  pressing  h^r  hand  on  the  base  of  her 


66  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

brain,  Mrs.  P.  moaned  and  rocked  herself  back 
and  forth  as  if  in  great  agony.  Then  the 
"control"  continued:  "He  says  it  was  so 
hard  to  die,  away  off  there  all  alone  !  How  he 
did  want  to  see  mother  !  "  Then  he  went  on 
to  explain  that  he  died  from  the  effects  of  a  fall, 
striking  the  back  of  his  head.  The  whole  de- 
scription was  most  strikingly  realistic. 

Now  for  the  facts  corresponding  to  this 
dramatic  narration.  I  had  a  half-brother  John, 
my  mother's  son.  (The  family  was  a  threefold 
one,  my  father  and  my  mother  both  having 
been  married  before  they  married  each  other.) 
He  was  many  years  older  than  I,  and  in  his 
earlier  life  had  gone  to  sea.  A  year  or 
two  before  this  sitting,  he  had  been  at  work 
in  Michigan,  building  a  steam  saw-mill.  Some 
hoisting  tackle  having  got  out  of  gear,  he 
had  climbed  up  to  disentangle  it.  Losing  his 
hold,  he  had  fallen  and  struck  the  back  of  his 
head  on  a  stick  of  timber,  from  the  results 
of  which  he  died.  No  friend  was  near  him  at 
the  time,  but  afterward  we  learned  that  he  ha^ 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES.  (J7 

died  talking  of  "Mother";  and  love  for  his 
mother  had  been  a  most  marked  characteristic 
all  through  his  life. 

John  was  not  consciously  in  my  mind  at  the 
time  of  this  sitting,  and  I  cannot  even  dream  of 
any  way  hy  which  Mrs.  P.  could  ever  even  have 
heard  that  any  such  person  had  ever  Hved. 

I  will  now  relate  a  very  slight  incident,  but 
one  which  I  should  like  to  have  somebody  ex- 
plain. The  psychic,  in  this  case,  was  not  a  pro- 
fessional. She  is  a  personal  friend  of  many 
years'  standing.  Most  of  her  friends  do  not 
know  that  she  ever  has  any  such  experiences. 
While  interested  in  these  matters,  she  is  modest 
and  undogmatic,  and  as  much  an  inquirer  as  I 
am  myself.  Her  present  husband  (she  has 
been  twice  married)  is  a  student  in  these  direc- 
tions, and  so  encourages  her  in  such  investi- 
gations. 

One  day  at  a  little  quiet  sitting,  she  unex- 
pectedly became  entranced.  It  was  only  occa- 
sionally that  this  occurred,  the  "  influences " 
commonly  working  in  some  other  way.     While 


m  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

thus  entranced,  she  personated  half  a  dozen 
different  people,  ranging  from  a  little  girl  to  an 
old  man.  Her  facial  expression,  voice,  gesture 
and  Avhole  being  took  on  and  expressed  the  par- 
ticular character  in  each  instance.  All  this  was 
utterly  unlike  her  ordinary  demeanor  ;  for  in 
her  normal  condition,  she  is  unusually  shy  and 
diffident.  She  would  have  needed  the  art  of 
the  actress  to  have  purposely  assumed  and  played 
these  various  parts. 

But  only  one  incident  of  this  sitting  will  I 
now  dwell  on.  Her  first  husband  claimed  to 
be  in  control  and  to  be  speaking  to  me  through 
her.  He  talked  over  many  things  of  which  I 
knew  nothing,  and  left  messages,  the  purport 
of  which  were  "  all  Greek  "  to  me,  but  which 
were  full  of  significance  to  her  as  I  related  them 
when  the  trance  was  over.  Among  other  things, 
he  said,  "  Tell  my  Avife  that  the  friend  she  is 
expecting  to  visit  her  will  come  on  Saturday." 
Then  he  added,  laughingly,  "  She  won't  believe 
that." 

I  knew  nothing  of  any  particular  friend  who 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  6<J 

was  coming  to  visit  her  on  Saturday  or  any- 
other  day ;  so  all  this  meant  nothing  to  me. 
But  when  I  gave  her  the  message,  she  smiled 
and  said,  "  That  is  surely  a  mistake,  for  I  have 
just  received  a  letter  from  this  friend  (a  lady 
in  New  York),  saying  that  I  am  to  expect  her 
next  week  Tuesday." 

This  sitting  was  on  Wednesday  morning. 
In  my  next  day's  mail  came  a  letter  from  my 
friend,  in  which  she  told  me  that,  on  reaching 
home,  she  found  another  letter  from  New  York 
telling  her  the  plans  had  been  changed,  and  the 
visitor  would  arrive  on  Saturday. 

I  leave  the  explanation  of  this  to  the  wise. 

I  wish  now  to  tell  some  parts  of  an  experi- 
ence which  a  young  lady  friend  of  mine  had 
with  Mrs.  P. ,  the  psychic  already  referred  to. 
This  young  lady  is  remarkable  for  her  level 
head,  clear  thought,  and  self-control.  She  and 
Mrs.  P.  had  never  met.  A  sittino-  was  arranofed. 
Miss  S.  (the  young  lady)  writing  and  making 
the  appointment  under  an  assumed  name,  and 
giving  the  address  of  a  friend  instead  of  her 


70  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

own  home :  so  anxious  was  she  that  there 
should  be  no  ckie  to  her  personahty.  She 
carried  a  book^  and  in  it  three  envelopes  con- 
taining three  locks  of  hair.  One  of  these  locks 
was  from  the  head  of  her  mother,  but  concern- 
ing the  other  two  she  knew  nothing.  They 
had  been  given  her  by  a  friend  to  be  used  as  a 
test.  When  Mrs.  P.  had  become  entranced, 
Miss  S.  gave  her  one  of  the  envelopes  contain- 
ing a  lock  of  hair.  Immediately  her  "  control" 
began  talking  about  it.  She  told  whose  head  it 
was  from,  gave  the  name,  and  not  only  this, 
but  the  names  of  other  people  connected  with 
this  one,  and  described  their  characteristics  and 
the  relations  in  which  they  stood  to  each  other. 

Meantime  Miss  S.  w^as  in  entire  ignorance  as 
to  the  correctness  of  the  statements  being  made. 
She  however  made  a  careful  record  of  them 
all,  and  afterwards  found  that  all  which  had 
been  said  was  true  in  every  particular. 

Now  this  case  is  not  like  the  psychometric 
one  mentioned  above ;  for  here  the  psychic  is 
entranced,  and  it  is  the  "  control  "  that  speaks. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES.  71 

In  the  other  case,  it  is  the  conscious  psychic 
herself. 

What  happened  in  regard  to  this  one  lock  of 
hair  happened  concerning  them  all.  In  each 
case  names  were  given,  facts  referred  to,  per- 
sons described,  and  all  with  complete  accuracy. 
I  state  the  case  in  this  brief  and  general  way ; 
but  I  have  in  my  possession  all  the  particular 
facts  written  out  at  the  time. 

I  am  now  to  relate  the  story  of  three  most 
remarkable  psychic  experiences  occurring  in  the 
life  of  the  same  person,  then  a  girl  not  more 
than  twelve  years  of  age.  The  lady  in  whose 
girlhood  they  happened  has  written  them  out 
for  me,  and  they  are  corroborated  by  witnesses 
who  had  full  knowledge  of  the  facts,  so  that 
they  would  constitute  evidence  in  a  court  of 
justice. 

Following  the  method  I  have  uniformly  pur- 
sued so  far,  I  will  tell  the  stories  in  my  own 
words.  I  do  this  for  the  sake  of  simplicity; 
but  the  autograph  documents  are  in  my  pos- 
session. 


72  PSYCHICS:  FACT6  xi^'lJ  TUEOniES. 

When  the  first  mstance  occurred.  Miss  D.  was 
about  eleven  years  old.  She  was  an  extremely 
nervous,  sensitive  child,  afraid  of  the  dark, 
always  I  3aring  strange  sounds,  and  never  will- 
ing to  go  upstairs  to  bed  alone. 

Her  father  was  an  educated  man,  a  Harvard 
graduate,  and  at  this  time  was  teaching  a  class 
that  met  in  one  of  the  rooms  on  the  second 
floor  of  the  house  in  which  they  then  lived. 
On  this  particular  evening,  just  after  supper, 
her  father  sent  her  up  to  this  classroom  to  re- 
move the  blower  from  the  Franldin  coal  stove. 
This  she  did,  and  then  started  for  the  sitting- 
room  below  again.  As  she  reached  the  top  of 
the  stau's,  she  saw  what  appeared  to  be  a  very 
tall  man  coming  up,  and  he  had  nearly  reached 
the  top.  She  stepped  aside  to  let  him  pass ; 
and  as  she  did  so,  she  lifted  her  head  and  looked 
him  full  in  the  face.  He  looked  down  in  her 
face  for  a  moment,  spoke  to  her,  and  said,  "  I 
watch  over  you,"  and  then  vanished  as  if  into 
the  side  of  the  wall. 

He  was  unusually  tall,  over  six  feet,  and  Miss 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  73 

D.  says  she  remembers  his  face  now  more  dis- 
tinctly than  that  of  any  other  face  she  ever  saw. 
She  knew  at  once  that  she  had  seen  him  by 
virtue  of  some  strange  inner  sight. 

So  far  the  word  "  haUucination  "  would  easily 
explain  it  all,  but  let  us  go  on. 

She  went  on  downstairs,  and  spent  the  even- 
ing quietly  with  the  family.  She  said  nothing 
that  night  to  any  one  of  what  she  had  seen,  only 
all  fear  of  the  dark  had  gone  ;  and  when 
bed-time  came,  and  they  asked  her  if  some 
one  should  go  with  her,  she  answered  "  No." 
From  that  time  forth  all  the  old  timidity  had 
ceased.  Instead  of  being  frightened,  as  at  a 
ghost,  she  felt  cared  for  and  guarded  by  a  lov- 
ing friend. 

The  next  morning  she  went  to  her  mother 
and  told  her  what  she  had  seen,  adding,  "  I 
think  the  man  I  saw  was  my  father's  father." 
This  grandfather  had  died  when  her  father  was 
a  boy  of  only  eleven.  There  w^as  no  likeness 
of  him  in  the  family,  and  her  father  remembered 
him  only  as  being  a  very  tall  man.     When  her 


74  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

father  heard  her  description,  he  said  that  it  waSj 
so  far  as  he  knew,  a  faithful  likeness.  The 
grandmother  was  still  living,  but,  being  a  very 
strict  Baptist,  knew  nothing  whatever  of  these 
psychical  matters  ;  but  she  declared  that  she 
could  not  herself  have  given  a  better  description 
of  her  husband  than  the  one  her  granddaughter 
gave,  from  having  seen  this  figure  on  the  stairs. 
And  she  always  believed  that,  for  some  special 
reason,  this  visit  from  the  unseen  had  been 
permitted. 

A  short  time  after,  this  same  little  Miss  D. 
was  seated  in  her  father's  study  one  evening 
reading  a  book.  After  a  while  she  looked  up 
from  her  book,  and  said,  "  Father,  there  is  some 
one  here  in  this  room,  and  she  wishes  to  speak." 
Her  father  was  writing  at  his  desk  in  another 
part  of  the  room,  facing  away  from  her.  But 
as  she  spoke,  he  turned,  and  said,  "  If  any  one 
wishes  to  speak  with  me,  she  must  give  me  her 
name,  as  I  am  busy."  Then  the  little  girl  said, 
"  Her  name  is  Mary,"  and,  waiting  a  moment, 
she  added,    "  Mary  Pickering."     At  once  her 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  75 

father  seemed  greatly  interested,  and  said,  "  If 
this  is  you,  Mary,  tell  me  something  by  which 
I  may  know  that  it  is  you."  Miss  D.  then  said 
(the  information  seemed  to  come  to  her  in  some 
inexplicable  way,  for  she  heard  no  words  with 
the  outer  ear) :  "  She  has  been  in  the  other  life 
many  years.  She  was  from  twenty-two  to 
twenty-four  when  she  died.  She  died  quite 
unexpectedly,  after  a  very  short  illness,  of  a 

fever.     She  lived  in  B .     You  met  her  and 

became  acquainted  with  lier  while  teaching  in 
that  town,  and  boarding  in  her  father's  family, 
before  you  left  college.  You  knew  her  before 
you  went  to  the  divinity  school.  She  has  been 
often,  often  to  you,  and  you  have  known  it.'' 

The  father  had  been  educated  for  the  Baptist 
ministry,  and  at  this  time  had  no  faith  in  the 
possibility  of  spirits  returning,  so  far  as  any  of 
the  family  knew.  But  he  asked  his  daughter 
if  she  could  describe  this  Mary,  sapng,  "  She 
had  marked  peculiarities  in  dress  and  in  the 
manner  of  arranging  her  hair."  The  daughter 
replied :  "  Yes,  she  has  hair  almost  black,  dark 


76  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

eyes,  so  dark  you  would  call  them  black ;  but  as 
you  look  closer,  you  see  they  are  hazel.  She 
wears  this  hab  in  tlwee  curls  on  each  side  of  the 
face,  and  these  curls  reach  down  in  such  a  manner 
that  they  make  a  frame  for  the  face,  while  the 
rest  of  the  hair  is  combed  back  and  fastened  by 
a  comb  in  a  twist  at  the  back  of  the  head.  The 
last  time  you  saw  her  she  had  on  a  cloth  dress ; 
it  looks  like  a  black  wool,  and  is  cut  with  a 
plain,  full  skirt,  and  a  plain  back  to  the  body  ; 
but  the  front  crosses  one  side  over  the  other  in 
three  folds,  and  the  sleeve  has  a  look  like  a  leg 
of  mutton." 

Then  the  father  sat  for  a  few  moments  in 
silence.  But  soon,  taking  his  bunch  of  keys  from 
his  pocket,  he  unlocked  a  drawer  in  his  writing- 
desk  which  his  little  girl  had  never  seen  opened 
b«ef  ore.  From  this  he  took  a  daguerreotype,  and, 
passing  it  to  her,  he  said,  "  This  is  a  likeness  of 
Mary  Pickering ;  does  she  look  like  this  ? " 
Thereupon  the  little  girl  said,  "  Just  like  it ; 
only  what  I  see  is  spirit." 

The  name  of  this  young  lady  the  little  girl 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXlJ  THEOUIES.  77 

had  never  before  heard.  She  did  not  know 
that  such  a  person  had  ever  lived  ;  and  no  one 
in  the  family,  except  her  father,  kncAV  that 
such  a  portrait  was  in  existence ;  and  only  he 
knew  of  this  episode  in  his  past  life.  Yet 
everything  that  Miss  D.  had  seen  and  said 
corresponded  perfectly  with  the  facts. 

This  Miss  D.,  now  of  course  grown  up,  is  a 
personal  acquaintance,  and  her  father  testifies 
to  the  strict  truthfulness  of  all  that  is  here 
written  down.  And  here,  let  it  be  remembered, 
is  no  experience  with  a  professional.  This  lady 
lives  in  the  quiet  of  a  wealthy  home  ;  has 
never  "  sat  "  for  psychical  investigation,  either 
for  money  or  for  any  other  reason.  Only  all 
her  life  long  she  has  been  subject  to  these 
strange  experiences.  Also  it  is  worth  noting 
that  she  is  healthy  and  sane,  and  practical  to 
an  unusual  degree. 

But  now  for  one  more  experience  out  of  her 
girlhood  life.  Again  she  was  sitting  with  her 
father  in  his  study.  She  was  a  great  book- 
lover,  and  so  his  study  was  a  favorite  place 


78  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  TUEOIUES. 

with  the  dauohter.  This  time  it  was  a  man 
she  saw.  So  she  said  to  her  father,  "  There  is 
a  man  here  by  the  name  of  Rockwood."  Her 
father  said  :  "  Yes,  I  knew  a  yonng  fellow  by 
that  name  once  ;  but  he  has  been  dead  for 
years  now.  Tell  me  where  I  knew  him  and 
hoAV  !  "  So  she  went  on,  and  said,  "  You  knew 
him  in  H.,  when  you  were  attending  the  class- 
ical school  then  kept  by  G.  R."  Then  she 
proceeded  to  describe  the  house  in  which  he 
had  lived  and  died.  She  told  him  it  stood  at 
the  forks  of  the  road,  was  a  mile  from  the 
town  ;  that  the  funeral  was  from  the  house, 
and  not  the  church,  as  was  the  custom  in  the 
town  at  that  time.  She  told  the  manner  in 
which  he  had  died. 

Her  father  then  said  :  "  I  do  not  know  any- 
thing more  than  the  fact  that  he  died  some 
years  ago.  If  you  can  see  all  this,"  he  added, 
"  you  certainly  ought  to  be  able  to  tell  me 
where  he  is  buried  ;  and  this  I  do  not  knoAV 
any  more  than  I  know  whether  his  funeral  was 
in  a  church  or  in  his  own  house." 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TIIEOBIES.  79 

In  a  few  moments  she  went  on,  "  I  can  o^o 
over  thje  entire  ground."  Then,  mentally,  she 
went  mto  the  house,  saw  the  body  as  it  lay  in 
the  coffin,  saw  the  face,  and  told  how  he  looked 
and  what  he  had  on.  Then  she  saw  them  take 
the  coffin  from  the  front  right-hand  room,  and 
put  it  into  the  hearse,  and  go  slowly  to  the 
cemetery,  which  was  a  mile  away.  She  also 
described  how  the  bell  in  the  Orthodox  Church 
tolled  all  the  time  while  the  procession  was  on 
the  way  to  the  grave.  She  seemed  to  enter 
the  cemetery  by  the  middle  gate.  She  de- 
scribed the  lot  as  being  on  the  left  side  of  the 
main  driveway,  just  before  coming  to  the  new 
addition  to  the  cemetery  at  the  farther  side. 

She  had  never  been  in  this  town  in  her  life, 
and  knew  nothing  about  it.  Her  father  knew 
nothing  of  the  circumstances  of  the  death  or 
the  funeral,  or  of  there  being  any  new  addition 
to  the  cemetery.  He  however  became  so  mter- 
ested  in  the  matter,  that  he  asked  her  if  she 
thought  she  could  go*unguided  from  the  rail- 
way station  to  the  cemetery,  and  then  back  to 


80  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

tlie  house.  She  felt  so  sure  that  she  could, 
that  it  was  decided  that  a  trial  should  be  made. 
So  one  day  they  together  visited  the  town. 
Her  father  kept  behind,  and  let  her  go  on 
alone.  As  stated  above,  she  had  never  before 
been  in  the  town,  and  he  had  not  visited  it  for 
many  years ;  but  she  proceeded  directly  to  the 
cemetery.  When  they  reached  the  left-hand 
corner  of  the  cemetery,  she  said,  ^^  I  can  go  in 
here  instead  of  going  round  to  the  main 
entrance,  where  the  procession  entered,  and  go 
straight  to  the  grave."  This  she  did,  recogniz- 
ing the  place  as  the  one  she  had  seen  mentally, 
and  finding  it  as  familiar  as  though  she  had 
known  it  all  her  life. 

Now  occurred  a  curious  incident.  At  the 
grave  they  saw  a  strange  gentleman  neither  of 
them  had  ever  seen  before.  He  was  talking 
with  the  town  undertaker.  Seeing  them  come 
to  this  particular  lot,  he  spoke  to  them.  It 
turned  out  that  he  had  married  a  sister  of  this 
Mr.  Rockwood,  by  wl>ose  grave  they  were 
standing.     After  falling  into  conversation,  Mr. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TUEOBIKS.  81 

D.,  the  little  girl's  father,  told  him  what  had 
brought  them  there.  He  straightway  became 
so  interested  in  the  matter,  that  he  begged 
them  to  go  to  the  old  home  with  him,  and  see 
if  his  wife  confirmed  the  story  as  Miss  D.  had 
told  it.  He  said  he  noticed  them  enter  the 
cemetery  ;  and  though  familiar  with  all  the 
place,  he  could  not  surely  have  gone  more 
directly  to  the  grave.  They  accepted  the  in- 
vitation, and,  her  father  having  renewed  his 
old  acquaintance  with  what  was  left  of  the 
family,  they  spent  the  night  there.  The 
sister  of  Mr.  Rockwood  remembered  all  the 
particulars  of  her  brother's  death,  and  con- 
firmed all  that  Miss  D.  had  said.  He  had  died 
in  the  chamber  she  had  described  ;  the  funeral 
was  in  the  house  and  not  in  the  church ;  the 
bell  did  toll  while  the  procession  was  in  motion. 
In  short,  she  had  been  correct  in  every  detail. 
This  case  seems  to  me  a  most  remarkable  one, 
and  one  not  easily  to  be  classified  under  any 
one  head.     She  sees  this  Mr.  Kockwood,  and 

he  tells   her  what  she  does   not  know.     Her 

6 


82  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

father  knows  a  part  of  it,  but  by  no  means  all. 
So,  telepathy  might  help  us  in  explanation  of 
some  of  it;  it  does  not  cover  all.  Another 
part  of  it  looks  like  clairvoyance ;  and  yet 
clairvoyance,  as  ordinarily  understood,  sees 
only  what  is  going  on  at  the  time.  But  here 
the  past  is  resurrected;  not  only  persons,  but 
places  and  events.  Let  who  can  undertake  to 
explain.  All  I  will  say  is  that  it  comes  to  me 
so  supported  by  evidence,  and  first-hand  evi- 
dence at  that,  that  I  cannot  but  accept  it  as  true. 

One  more  case  shall  close  this  already  long 
story  of  psychic  experience.  It  occurred  on  a 
certain  evening  in  June  in  the  year  1890.  The 
place  is  a  well-known  town  in  one  of  the  New 
England  States.  The  psychic  is  a  clergy- 
man who  gives  me  the  account,  and  it  is  con- 
firmed by  the  autograph  indorsement  of  the 
other  principal  man  concerned.  It  seems  to  me 
to  demand  the  presence  and  the  activity  of 
some  invisible  intelligence. 

There  were  present  Mr.  and  Mrs.  B.,  two  or 
three  friends,  and  the  clergyman.     Conversa- 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXB  THEOniES.  83 

tion  turned  on  this  general  subject,  when  Mr. 
B.  remarked  that  he  wished  he  could  have 
a  satisfactory  test.  The  clergyman,  Mr.  L., 
thereupon  felt  a  sudden  and  very  powerful  ner- 
vous shock.  This  always  precedes,  in  his 
case,  an  experience  of  this  kmd.  He  describes 
it  by  saying  that  this  strange  sensation  com- 
mences at  the  cerebellum,  and  passes  down  the 
spinal  column,  and  thence  branching  to  his  feet. 
The  feeling  is  very  like  that  produced  by  the 
action  of  an  electric  current  applied  to  the 
base  of  the  brain,  and  passed  downward,  espe- 
cially if  the  surface  of  the  skin  is  lightly 
touched  by  the  sponge. 

Immediately  he  saw  (it  was  a  subjective 
vision)  the  face  and  form  of  a  gentleman  who 
was  a  stranger  to  him.  He  bore  a  resemblance 
to  Mr.  B.,  who  sat  near.  In  this  same  subjec- 
tive way,  he  saw  the  name  of  ^'Edward  B." 
(I  give  only  the  initial  of  the  last  name,  though 
the  full  name  is  in  my  possession).  Then  he 
seemed  to  have  uttered  these  words :  "  Tell 
my  brother  that  a  piece    of  property  which  I 


84  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

once  owned,  and  Avhicli  by  death  fell  to  my 
heirs,  and  is  now  owned  by  my  brother,  is  in 
danger  of  being  lost  to  him.  He  must  look 
after  it  at  once,  or  it  will  pass  out  of  his 
hands."  The  "  spirit "  was  very  urgent,  and 
the  psychic  was  very  strangely  thrilled  and  af- 
fected by  his  presence.  Those  in  the  room 
remarked  on  the  changed  character  of  the  psy- 
chic's countenance,  it  being  shining  and  appar- 
ently illuminated. 

Mr.  B.  at  once  replied,  however :  "  It  is  not 
possible  that  this  can  be  true.  I  have  all  my 
tax  bills  on  the  various  properties  which  I  own 
in  Nebraska.     It  is  a  mistake." 

This  Mr.  B.  is  a  cautious  and  careful  busi- 
ness man;  so  what  occurred  is  all  the  more 
remarkable.  He  w^as  not  a  spiritualist,  but  was 
a  candid  inquirer. 

In  spite  of  the  denial  of  Mr.  B.,  the  "spirit" 
was  very  urgent  that  the  matter  be  looked  up 
at  once. 

A  few  days  later,  Mr.  L.,  the  clerical  psychic 
(he  is  still  in  the  active  work  of  the  ministry, 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  85 

and  not  making  a  profession  of  this  strange 
power),  sailed  for  a  vacation  trip  to  Europe. 
He  was  absent  several  months. 

On  his  return  he  met  Mr.  B.  one  day,  and  he 
said :  "  Oh,  about  that  matter  in  Nebraska.  I 
looked  over  my  papers  soon  after  you  went 
away,  and  found  that  one  of  my  tax  bills  on  a 
certain  piece  of  property  was  missing.  I  felt 
sure  that  I  had  received  it,  but  I  found  that 
I  had  been  mistaken.  I  at  once  wrote  to  my 
agent  (in  Nebraska),  and  requested  him  to  send 
the  tax  bill  to  me.  Several  days  elapsed  beyond 
those  required  for  an  answer,  but  none  came. 
I  wrote  again,  and  peremptorily,  telling  my 
agent  that  he  could  attend  to  the  matter  im- 
mediately, or  I  would  transfer  my  business  to 
another  man.  This  letter  brought  a  prompt 
reply.  The  agent  wrote  that,  through  his  own 
oversight,  the  lessee  had  been  allowed  to  pay 
the  tax  on  tlie  property,  and  had  taken  as 
security  what  is  called  a  tax  lien.  TheiKiyment 
of  these  taxes,  and  the  ta.Mncj  of  such  liens  for 
a  certain    length    of  time  loill,  in    the   end, 


86  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  TREOIUES. 

entitle  the  lessee  to  a  warrantee  deed  of  the 
proiJertyJ' 

This  is  Nebraska  law  ;  and  many  a  dodge  of 
this  kind  is  resorted  to  as  a  means  of  swin- 
dling the  real  owner  out  of  his  property. 

This  seems  to  be  a  strikingly  clear-cut  case. 
At  the  time  of  this  message,  purporting  to  come 
from  Mr.  B.'s  brother,  no  living  man  this  side 
of  Nebraska  had  any  knowledge  of  the  facts  as 
stated.  These  facts  proved  to  be  correct  in 
every  particular.  And  here  is  one  instance 
that  a  "  spiritualist  "  might  use  in  rebuttal  of 
the  common  charge  that  the  "  messages,"  never 
tell  anything  that  is  of  any  value  to  anybody. 
In  this  case,  certainly,  a  valuable  price  of  prop- 
erty was  saved  by  the  message  whatever  may 
have  been  its  source. 

The  story  is  authenticated  in  such  a  way  as 
would  make  it  good  evidence  in  the  hands  of 
any  judge,  or  before  any  jury  in   Christendom. 


l^SYCmCS:  FACTS  A2^1J  THEORIES.  87 


CHAPTER  IV. 

No  matter  what  my  opinion  is,  for  the  pres- 
ent. The  reader  is  not  expected  to  care.  I  do 
not  mean  to  reveal  it.  I  may,  however,  do  so 
quite  inadvertently.  Perhaps  I  shall  find  it  no 
easy  thing  to  keep  it  from  peeping  out  some- 
where between  the  lines.  For  of  course  I  have 
one.  I  am  not  the  "  intelligent  juror  "  who 
has  not  heard  of  the  case.  And,  having 
studied  it  for  several  years,  I  cannot  claim  to 
be  entirely  free  from  bias.  Should  I  claim  to 
be,  the  reader  might  justly  question  my  compe- 
tence to  form  an  opinion  on  any  subject.  But 
I  can  say — and  this  is  all  the  reader  need  care 
about — that  I  have  no  opinion  which  I  am  not 
ready  to  revise  or  to  reject  altogether  for  a 
sufficient  reason.  Neither  am  I  like  the  old 
Scotchman  who   said  :   ^^  I  am  open  to  convic- 


88  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  ANIJ  TUEOIllES. 

tion,  but  where  is  the  man  that  can  convince 
me  ?  "  I  am  not  able  to  understand  how  any 
man  should  care  to  hold  or  defend  any  opinion 
that  is  not  true.  Since  the  truth  is  the  only 
reality,  he  who  seeks  or  cherishes  anything  else 
is  only  storing  up  disappointment  for  himself. 

So  much  it  seems  needful  for  me  to  say. 
Not  that  I  am  egotistical  enough  to  imagine 
that  my  unsupported  opinion  is  so  important 
as  to  concern  any  one  ',  but  because  my  point 
of  view,  and  the  spirit  in  which  I  enter  on  my 
task,  may  greatly  concern  all  those  who  be- 
come interested  in  this  discussion.  It  is  ini- 
j)ortant  that  the  reader  should  know  that  I  am 
not  an  interested  advocate,  and  that  I  mil  join 
him  in  being  grateful  to  any  one  who  shall 
prove  to  be  wise  enough  satisfactorily  to  settle 
the  problem  that  is  to  be  raised.  This  prob- 
lem concerns  both  the  reality  and  the  nature 
of  certain  alleged  facts  that  are  usually  as- 
sociated with,  or  that  pass  under  the  name  of, 
Spiritualism. 

The  Spiritualists  make  two  claims  that  need 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXU  THEORIES.  89 

to  be  noted,  only  in  order  that  their  real  posi- 
tion may  be  understood,  and  that  the  situation 
may  be  stated  as  fairly  as  possible. 

In  the  first  place,  they  say  that  though  there 
has  been  an  extraordinary  and  wide-spread  de- 
velopment of  these  phenomena  in  the  modern 
world,  they  are  no  new  thing,  and  so  are  not 
out  of  keeping  Avith  what  has  occurred  in 
the  past  history  of  mankind.  Intelligent  and 
credible  witnesses,  they  claim,  have  reported 
similar  happenings  in  every  age.  And,  in  spite 
of  misreports  and  exaggerations,  they  further 
claim  that  these  stories  are  so  in  line  with  then' 
own  experiences  as  to  make  the  belief  entirely 
reasonable  that  there  are  grains  of  truth  in  the 
bushels  of  chaff.  For  examj^le,  concerning  the 
story  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  few  of  them 
would  believe  that  the  body  which  was  cru- 
cified ever  lived  again.  They  would  say  that 
a  spiritual  reappearance  is  a  more  rational  ex- 
planation than,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the 
disciples  lied,  or,  on  the  other,  that  the  story 
sprang   up   out  of  nothing  at   all.     And  then 


90  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXB  TIlEOlilES. 

tliey  point  to  such  Avell-attested  reports  as  those 
of  the  extraordinary  happenings  in  the  house 
of  the  Wesleys  in  England,  and  in  that  of  Dr. 
Phelps  in  Connecticut. 

In  the  second  place,  they  resent  the  charge 
that  they  believe  in  the  supernatural  or  the 
mu-aculous.  They  say  that  if  these  things 
occur  at  all,  they  are  a  part  of  the  natural 
order ;  and  that  they  are  none  the  less  so 
because  the  persons  who  are  the  agents  and 
actors  in  them  are  invisible  to  ordinary  human 
sight.  So  much  in  order  fah-ly  to  set  forth  the 
situation.  And  now  I  must  ask  the  reader's 
patience  for  even  a  Httle  longer,  while  I  make 
a  few  more  prehminary  points. 

As  to  my  reasons  for  looking  into  this  sub- 
ject. A  minister  is  expected  to  be  able  to 
help  his  parishioners  in  their  practical  difficul- 
ties ;  and  as  hundreds  of  people  have  appHed 
to  me  for  advice  in  these  matters,  I  have  felt 
that  I  ought  to  have  an  opinion  for  them  and 
not  merely  a  prejudice.  Then,  while  I  have 
always  hoped  for  a  future  life,  and  while  I  have 


PSYCHICS:  FACT.'S  AMJ  TUE0mE6.  <ji 

felt  the  force  of  all  the  arguments  so  often  pre- 
sented, I  have  been  compelled  to  confess  that 
these  arguments  fell  short  of  demonstration  ; 
and  I  have  been  willing  to  exchange  a  hope 
for  a  demonstration,  provided  such  a  thing 
were  possible.  In  the  third  place,  I  have  felt 
that  Spiritualism  is  either  a  grand  truth  or  a 
most  lamentable  delusion ;  and  for  the  sake  of 
the  vast  interests  involved,  and  of  the  thousands 
who  looked  to  it  for  light,  it  has  seemed  to  me 
that  the  problem  ought  to  be  competently  in- 
vestigated. I  agreed  with  Professor  Sidgwick, 
of  Cambridge,  England,  in  saying  that  it  was  a 
scandal  to  the  scientific  world  that  so  grave 
and  so  important  a  matter  should  go  so  long 
without  any  adequate  explanation. 

Then,  though  many  had  clauned  to  inves- 
tigate, and  had  declared  the  Avhole  matter  only 
fraud  and  humbug,  I  had  to  remember  some 
things.  First,  that  hypnotism  had  been  ex- 
amined by  a  scientific  commission  and  gravely 
pronounced  only  charlatanry  and  delusion ; 
while  to-day  it  is  universally  accepted,  and  is 


92  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

used  by  the  regular  faculty  in  the  treatment  of 
disease.  Secondly,  that  clairvoyance  was  once 
only  scouted;  while  now  most  competent  inves- 
tigators are  compelled  to  admit  that  such  a  thing 
does  really  exist.  Thirdly,  that  mind-reading 
or  telepathy  was  at  first  declared  to  be  impos- 
sible ;  but  that  to-day  it  seems  to  be  the  only 
way  of  explaining  certain  things  that  do  actually 

occur. 

And  then,  long  study  had  driven  me  to  the 
conclusion  that,  in  a  universe  the  size  of  this, 
a  modest  scientific  man  will  hesitate  about 
declaring  as  to  what  is  or  what  is  not  impos- 
sible. The  world  is  perhaps  a  little  too  free 
with  its  theories  as  to  what  can  happen  and 
what  cannot  happen.  Not  long  ago  a  work- 
man in  a  NcAV  York  factory  came  to  the  over- 
seer with  a  strange  story  as  to  the  behavior  of 
the  steam  in  a  certain  part  of  the  works.  The 
overseer,  v/ho  had  made  steam  his  life-long 
study,  declared  that  the  thing  was  impossible  ; 
steam  could  not  act  in  that  Avay.  But  investiga- 
tion proved  that  the  "impossible"  was  taking 


P.SVCHtCS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  93 

place  ;  and  the  result  was  a  iieAV  invention, 
more  knoAvledge  of  steam,  and  an  increase  in 
the  modesty  of  the  overseer.  It  is  only  the 
traditional  court  pettifogger  who  any  longer 
"  denies  the  fact."  If  it  be  a  fact,  then  room 
must  be  made  for  it  somewhere,  however  long 
the  explanation  of  it  may  have  to  wait. 

I  have  always  tried,  then,  first  to  see  if  I 
could  find  any  facts.  I  have  a  horror  of  being 
fooled.  I  have  studied  sleight  of  hand,  and 
tried  to  find  out  the  limits  and  possibilities  of 
trickery.  I  have,  in  all  directions,  wanted  the 
truth  and  only  the  truth.  I  hold  that  the 
"  scientific  method "  is  the  only  method  of 
knowledge,  and  that  it  can  be  applied  success- 
fully to  anything  that  is  real,  and  with  which 
we  really  come  in  contact.  I  may  hoj^e  a 
thousand  things ;  I  may  believe  that  many 
things  are  probable ;  but  I  have  never  claimed 
to  hioio  anything  that  could  not  be  demon- 
strated as  true. 

In  my  investigations  I  have  ruthlessly  set 
aside   everything  that    has   seemed   to   occur 


94  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  ANU  TIlEOlllKS. 

where  the  conditions  were  such  that  I  could  not 
feel  sure  of  my  facts.  And  when  I  have  had 
the  surest  grip  on  a  fact,  in  reasoning  upon  it^ 
I  have  rigidly  tried  to  explain  it  in  accordance 
with  known  laws  and  forces.  It  is  only  when 
all  my  knowledge  of  accepted  theories  and 
forces  failed  to  help  me  to  a  solution,  that  I 
have  set  the  fact  aside  until  some  wiser  man 
could  tell  me  what  it  meant.  A  study  like 
this,  extending  over  a  period  of  at  least  a  dozen 
years,  has  left  me  where  I  am  to-day.  I  am  in 
possession  of  quite  a  large  body  of  apparent 
facts  that  I  do  not  know  what  to  do  Avith.  The 
generally-recognized  scientific  order  of  the 
world  has  no  place  for  them ;  I  therefore  bring 
them  into  the  open  air  of  the  public  to  see  if 
any  one  is  wise  enough  to  tell  Avhat  they  mean. 
Have  they  any  bearing  on  the  nature  and 
destiny  of  man  ?  Do  they  require  for  explana- 
tion the  agency  of  invisible  intelligences  ?  Or, 
can  they  be  referred  to  the  working  of  embodied 
minds  ? 

That  certain  things  to  me  inexplicable  have 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TUEOniEs,  95 

occurred,  I  believe.  The  negative  opinion  of 
some  one  with  whom  no  such  thino-s  have  oc- 
curred  will  not  satisfy  me.  Some  of  those  who 
know  the  least  about  such  matters  will  doubt- 
less inform  me  that  I  have  been  deluded,  and 
that  my  supposed  facts  are  not  facts  at  all. 
But  so  long  as  they  do  not  know  the  care  I 
have  taken,  nor  the  circumstances,  and  are 
ignorant  of  how  many  tunes  I  have  repeated 
the  same  experiment,  this  proposed  explanation 
will  hardly  satisfy  me.  Neither  will  it  be  quite 
enough  to  tell  me  how  a  similar  thing  may  be 
done  under  other  conditions.  I  know  all  this 
already,  but  this  knowledge  has  no  bearing  on 
my  particular  series  of  facts. 

After  so  much  preliminary — none  of  which, 
under  the  circumstances,  seems  to  me  uncalled 
for — I  am  ready  to  submit  some  specimens  of 
those  things  that  constitute  my  problem.  They 
can  be  only  specimens,  for  a  detailed  account 
of  even  half  of  those  I  have  laid  by  would 
stretch  to  the  limits  of  a  book. 

Thouo'li  all  that  has  ever  been  claimed  as 

o 


96  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES. 

true,  under  the  general  heads  o£  hypnotism, 
clairvoyance,  clairaudience,  and  telepathy, 
should  be  proved  to  be  true  beyond  all  ques- 
tion, it  is  of  course  apparent  that  all  of  them 
together  would  still  fall  far  short  of  proving 
the  spiritualistic  claim.  For  this  claim  is 
nothinof  less  than  that  those  we  call  dead  are 
still  alive,  and  that,  at  certain  times  and  under 
certain  conditions,  they  both  can  and  do  com- 
municate with  persons  still  in  the  ordinary 
body. 

And  yet,  as  the  very  first  point  in  my  prob- 
lem, I  wish  to  submit  a  case  that  I  suppose 
falls  under  the  head  of  telepathy.  Out  of  many 
I  choose  this,  for  the  following  reasons :  It  is 
unquestionably  true.  Names,  dates,  and  all 
details  are  accessible.  The  distance  across 
which  the  line  of  communication  stretched  was 
enormous.  The  fact  was  not  expected,  and 
could  not  have  been  anticipated.  No  ordinary 
method  of  communication,  not  even  the  tele- 
graph, was  2^ossible.  It  is  not  different  in  kind 
from    a    thousand    others ;  but,   like    a    taller 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXl)  THEORIES.  97 

mountain  among  its  fellows,  it  stands  out  with 
peculiar  distinctness  as  a  remarkable  specimen 
of  its  kind. 

A  merchant  ship,  bound  for  New  York,  was 
on  her  homeward  voyage.  She  was  in  the 
Indian  Ocean.  The  captain  was  engaged  to 
be  married  to  a  lady  living  in  New  England. 
One  day,  early  in  the  afternoon,  he  came,  pale 
and  excited,  to  one  of  his  mates  and  exclaimed : 
"  Tom,  Kate  has  just  died  !  I  have  seen  her 
die  !  "  The  mate  looked  at  him  in  amazement, 
not  knowing  what  to  make  of  such  talk.  But 
the  captain  went  on  and  described  the  whole 
scene — the  room,  her  appearance,  how  she  died, 
and  all  the  circumstances.  So  real  was  it  to 
him,  and  such  was  the  effect  on  him  of  his  grief 
that,  for  two  or  three  weeks,  he  was  carefully 
watched  lest  he  should  do  violence  to  himself. 
It  was  more  than  150  days  before  the  ship 
reached  her  harbor.  During  all  this  time  no 
news  was  received  from  home.  But  when  at 
last  the  ship  arrived  at  New  York,  it  was  found 
that  Kate  did  die  at  the  time  and  under  t- 


98  PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  TTIEOniES. 

circumstances  seen  and  described  by  the  captain 
off  the  coast  of  India. 

This  is  only  one  case  out  of  hundreds.  What 
does  it  mean  ?  Coincidence  ?  Just  happened 
so  ?  This  might  be  said  of  one  case  ;  but  a 
hundred  of  such  coincidences  become  inex- 
plicable. Did  some  invisible  intelligence  con- 
vey the  news  ?  Did  he  really  see  her  ?  Or  did 
she,  in  that  hour,  reach  out  with  such  a  longing 
that  she  touched  him  half-way  round  the  world? 

Now,  though  this  may  fall  far  short  of  the 
spiritualistic  claim,  does  it  not  suggest  some- 
thing strange  and  generally  unrecognized  as  to 
the  nature  and  power  of  mind  ?  If  mind  can, 
under  any  conditions,  or  however  rarely,  assert 
such  a  semi-independence  of  the  body  and  of 
the  ordinary  methods  of  communication,  may 
it  not  be  able  to  go  alone?  I  do  not  say  or 
think  that  such  a  supposition  is  proved  by  a 
case  like  this ;  but  is  it  not  at  least  susfSfested  ? 
When  the  Second  Adventist  told  Emerson  that 
the  world  was  coming  to  an  end,  he  calmly 
replied :    "  Well,    I    think    I    can    get    along 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEOBIES.  99 

without  it."  Do  not  cases  like  the  ahove  at 
least  start  the  surmise  as  to  whether  these  souls 
of  ours  are  not  such  as  to  he  able  to  "o-et  alons: 
without  it "  ? 

I  pass  now  to  such  phenomena  as  are  usually 
classed  under  the  head  of  Spu'itualism.  I  shall 
avoid  the  use  of  the  word  so  far  as  possible,  for 
the  reason  that  it  assumes  an  explanation  ;  and 
it  is  an  explanation  of  which  I  am  still  in  search. 
I  shall  present  specimens  of  three  different 
classes  of  manifestations. 

1.  And  first,  I  note  some  of  such  as  are 
usually  spoken  of  as  "  physical,"  though  I  have 
never  seen  any  that  were  purely  physical,  for 
the  intelligence  of  somebody  has  always  been 
mixed  with  them.  These  physical  experiments 
are  justly  regarded  with  more  suspicion  than 
are  those  of  the  higher  order,  because  the  op- 
portunities for  trickery  are  great,  and  they  seem 
to  be  more  nearly  on  a  level  with  the  work  of  the 
prestidigitator.  But  the  conditions,  the  time, 
the  place,  and  one's  capacity  as  an  observer, 
must  be  taken  into  account.     Surely  it  is  pos- 


100         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

sible,  at  least  in  some  cases,  for  one  to  knoAv 
what  really  happens.  I  will  instance  a  few 
cases,  and  the  reader  must  judge. 

I  went  to  the  house  of  a  woman  in  New 
York.  She  was  not  a  professional.  We  had 
never  seen  each  other  before.  We  took  seats 
in  the  parlor  for  a  talk,  I  not  looking  for  any 
manifestation.  Raps  began.  I  do  not  say 
whether  they  were  really  where  they  seemed  to 
be  or  not ;  I  know  right  well  that  the  judgment 
is  subject  to  illusion  through  the  senses.  But 
I  was  told  a  "sj)irit  friend"  was  present;  and 
soon  the  name,  time  and  place  of  death,  etc., 
were  given  me.  It  was  the  name  of  a  friend 
I  had  once  known  intimately.  But  twenty 
years  had  passed  since  the  old  intimacy ;  she 
had  lived  in  another  State  ;  I  am  certain  that 
she  and  the  psychic  had  never  known  or  even 
heard  of  each  other.  '  She  had  died  within  a 
few  months. 

I  have  had  several  experiences  that  have 
demonstrated  to  me  that  physical  objects  are 
sometimes  moved  in  a  way  that  cannot  be  ac- 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.  101 

counted  for  by  any  muscular  power,  or  by  any 
mere  j)hysical  force  with  the  workmgs  of  which 
I  am  acquainted.  I  was  sitting  one  evening  at 
the  house  of  a  friend,  a  lady  whom  I  had  known 
for  eight  or  ten  years.  Neither  she  nor  her 
husband  was  a  Spiritualist ;  but  that  which,  for 
want  of  a  better  name,  we  call  psychic  force, 
was  sometimes  manifested  in  her  presence. 
Both  she  and  her  husband  were  shnply  inquir- 
ers, as  I  was.  At  the  end  of  the  evening  I  rose 
to  go.  Many  inexplicable  things  had  already 
occurred.  Then  I  thought  I  would  try  a  simple 
experiment.  She  and  I  stood  at  opposite  sides 
of   the   table  at  which  we    had  been    sittino\ 

o 

Both  of  us  having  placed  the  tips  of  our  fingers 
lightly  on  the  top  of  the  table,  I  spoke,  as  if 
addressing  some  unseen  force  connected  with 
the  table,  and  said  :  "  Now  I  must  go  ;  will  you 
not  accompany  me  to  the  door  ?  "  The  door 
was  ten  or  fifteen  feet  distant  and  was  closed. 
The  table  started.  It  had  no  casters,  and  in 
order  to  make  it  move  as  it  did  we  should  have 
had  to  go  behind  and  to  push  it.     As  a  matter 


102         PSYCHICS  :  FACTS  AXD  THEOBIES. 

of  fact,  we  led  it,  while  it  accompanied  us  all 
the  way  and  struck  against  the  door  with  con- 
siderable force.  I  then  lifted  it  and  carried  it 
back  into  the  middle  of  the  room.  My  friend 
then  stood  at  the  end  of  it  opposite  to  me,  while 
I  stood  at  some  distance  away,  between  it  and 
the  door.  I  addressed  it  again,  as  though  talk- 
ing to  an  intelligent  being,  and  said  :  "  Will 
you  not  lift  for  me  the  other  end  of  the  table  ?  " 
My  friend  stood  with  only  the  tips  of  her  fin- 
gers touching  the  upper  side  of  the  table  near 
the  end.  Immediately  the  end  of  the  table  next 
to  her  was  lifted  into  the  air,  and  the  table  went 
through  a  motion  as  if  bowing  to  me,  bending 
over  as  far  as  her  arms  could  reach.  In  this 
case,  I  might  have  been  suspicious  of  some  pos- 
sible trick,  but  for  two  considerations.  First, 
I  knew  and  trusted  my  friend ;  secondly,  I 
could  plainly  see  the  hands,  and  knew  that  the 
thumbs  were  not  under  the  edge  of  the  table. 
Besides,  I  had  learned  before,  under  other  con- 
ditions, that  this  power  of  moving  physical 
objects  did  exist. 


PSYCHICS:  FACT^  ASU  TliEURlES.         lU^ 

I  add  one  more  experiment  of  my  own.  I 
sat  one  day  in  a  heavy  stuffed  arm-chair.  The 
psychic  sat  beside  me,  and  hiying  his  hand 
on  the  back  of  the  chair,  gradually  raised  it. 
Immediately  I  felt  and  saw  myself,  chaii-  and 
all,  lifted  into  the  air  at  least  one  foot  from  the 
floor.  There  was  no  uneven  motion  implying 
any  sense  of  effort  on  the  part  of  the  lifting 
force ;  and  I  was  gently  lowered  again  to  the 
carpet.  This  was  in  broad  light,  in  a  hotel  par- 
lor, and  in  presence  of  a  keen-eyed  lawyer  friend. 
I  could  plainly  watch  the  whole  thing.  No 
man  living  could  have  lifted  me  in  such  a  posi- 
tion, and  besides,  I  saw  that  the  psychic  made 
not  the  slightest  apparent  effort.  Nor  was 
there  any  machinery  or  preparation  of  any  kind. 
My  companion,  the  lawyer,  on  going  away, 
speaking  in  reference  to  the  whole  sitting,  said  : 
"  I've  seen  enough  evidence  to  hang  every  man 
in  the  State — enough  to  prove  anytlibig  except- 
ing  this  !  " 

Professor  Crookes,  of  London,  relates  having 
seen  and  heard  an  accordion  played  on  while  it 


104         i^SlXiiiC>b;  i'.lCi.S  ASIJ  THEU1:IL;>, 

was  inclosed  in  a  wire  net-work  and  not  touched 
by  any  visible  hand.  I  have  seen  an  approach 
to  the  same  thing.  In  daylight,  I  have  seen  a 
man  hold  an  accordion  in  the  air  not  more  than 
three  feet  away  from  me.  He  held  it  by  one 
handj  grasping  the  side  opposite  to  that  on 
which  the  keys  were  fixed.  In  this  position, 
it,  or  something,  played  long  tunes,  the  side 
containing  the  keys  being  pushed  in  and  drawn 
out  without  any  contact  that  I  could  see.  I 
then  said  :  "  Will  it  not  play  for  me  ?  "  The 
reply  was :  "  I  don't  know ;  you  can  try  it." 
I  then  took  the  accordion  in  my  hands.  There 
was  no  music  ;  but  what  did  occur  was  quite  as 
inexplicable  to  me,  and  quite  as  convincing  as 
a  display  of  some  kind  of  power.  I  know  not 
how  to  express  it,  except  by  saying  that  the 
accordion  was  seized  as  if  by  some  one  trying 
to  take  it  aAvay  from  me.  To  test  this  power, 
I  grasped  the  instrument  with  both  hands.  The 
struggle  was  as  real  as  though  my  antagonist 
were  another  man.  I  succeeded  in  keeping  it, 
but  only  by  the  most  strenuous  effort. 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXU  THEORIES.  105 

On  another  occasion  I  was  sitting  with  a 
"  medium."  I  was  too  far  away  for  him  to  reach 
me,  even  had  he  tried  ;  which  he  did  not  do, 
for  he  sat  perfectly  quiet.  My  knees  were  not 
under  the  table,  but  were  where  I  could  see 
them  plainly.  Suddenly  my  right  knee  was 
grasped  as  by  a  hand.  It  was  a  firm  grip.  I 
could  feel  the  print  and  pressure  of  all  the 
fino'ers.  I  said  not  a  w^ord  of  the  strano-e  sensa- 
tion,  but  quietly  put  my  right  hand  down  and 
clasped  my  knee,  in  order  to  see  if  I  could  feel 
anything  on  my  hand.  At  once  I  felt  what 
seemed  like  the  most  delicate  finger  tips  play- 
ing over  my  own  fingers  and  gradually  rising 
in  their  touches  toward  my  wrist.  When  this 
was  reached,  I  felt  a  series  of  clear,  distinct, 
and  definite  pats,  as  though  made  by  a  hand  of 
fleshy  vigor.  I  made  no  motion  to  indicate 
what  was  going  on,  and  said  not  a  word  until 
the  sensation  had  passed.  All  this  while  I  was 
carefully  watching  my  hand,  for  it  was  plain 
daylight  and  all  was  in  full  view ;  but  I  saw 
nothing. 


lUG         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  ANU  THEORIES. 

If  anybody  will  explain  these  things  I  shall 
be  very  grateful,  whether  the  explanation  take 
me  to  another  world  or  leave  me  in  this  one. 

I  should  like  merely  to  suggest  that,  so  far 
as  we  know,  the  only  force  that  under  any 
circumstances  ever  opposes  or  overcomes  the 
force  of  gravity,  is  will  force,  or  some  power 
under  the  direction  of  intelligent  Avill.  If,  there- 
fore, a  single  pin's  weight  of  matter  is  ever 
moved  contrary  to  the  natural  pull  of  gravity, 
and  the  motion  is  not  explainable  by  any  of  the 
known  forces  of  nature,  we  must  in  its  presence 
regard  ourselves  as  standing  on  the  border  line 
of  some  undiscovered  power.  If  the  signifi- 
cance of  such  a  fact  is  once  appreciated,  people 
will  hardly  sneer  at  such  things  as  unworthy, 
undignified,  or  of  no  account  even  if  true. 

And  when  people  ask  me  why  this,  and  why 
that,  and  why  not  something  else,  if  anything 
at  all  is  going  to  happen,  I  have  a  ready  reply. 
The  three  great  questions  that  the  world  is 
always  asking  are,  "  \yhat,"  "  How,"  and 
"  Why."      Thus,   science  begins   with  What ; 


P  S  Y CHICS  :  FA  CTS  A  YD  THEORIES.  107 

this  is  observation  of  facts,  the  first  step  in 
rational  inquiry.  Some  of  the  world's  Hows 
we  can  answer  :  this  is  the  reoion  of  methods 
and  laws.  But  Why  is  a  question  that  very 
few  people  are  ever  able  to  answer  in  regard  to 
anything.  It  is  wiser,  then,  to  begin  with  the 
What,  and  we  should  be  thankful  if  we  can  get 
as  far  as  the  How.  Until  I  know  more  about 
these,  I  will  let  the  Why  rest. 

2.  In  the  second  place,  I  will  cite  some  ex- 
amples of  psychic  power  more  exclusively  mental. 
Here  I  am  bewildered  with  the  mass  of  material. 
I  confine  myself,  at  present,  to  a  certain  class 
of  cases — those  in  which  I  have  been  told  thinof's 
which  I  knew,  but  which  I  know  the  j)sychic 
did  not  know.  Such  instances  have  been  so 
numerous  in  my  experience  that,  like  the  tele- 
phone and  telegraph,  they  have  become  almost 
commonplace.  Of  course  they  may  be  mind- 
reading — if  some  one  will  only  tell  me  what 
mind-reading  is.  Since  this  may  be  telepathy, 
I  must  be  brief  with  them,  as  I  have  more 
important  cases  still  to  relate. 


108         PSYCniCS:  FACTS  AXD  TIIEOBIES. 

The  first  time  I  was  ever  in  the  presence  of 
a  particular  psychic,  she  went  into  a  trance. 
She  had  never  seen,  and  so  far  as  I  know  had 
never  had  any  way  of  hearing  of,  my  father, 
who  had  died  some  years  previously.  When  I 
was  a  boy  he  always  called  me  by  a  special  name 
that  w^as  never  used  by  any  other  member  of 
the  family.  In  later  years  he  hardly  ever  used 
it.  But  the  entranced  psychic  said  :  '^  An  old 
gentleman  is  here  " ;  and  she  described  certain 
very  marked  peculiarities.  Then  she  added  : 
"He  says  he  is  your  father,  and  he  calls  you 
,"  using  this  old  childhood  name  of  mine. 

On  another  occasion  a  friend  went  to  the 
same  psychic,  taking  an  unmarked  lock  of  my 
hair  in  an  envelope.  This  envelope  was  put  into 
her  hand  after  she  had  become  entranced.  She 
not  only  at  once  told  my  name,  but  also  details 
of  many  occurrences  that  had  taken  place  in  my 
study — things  that  were  said  and  done,  the 
peculiar  way  in  which  the  lock  was  cut  off,  and 
the  like.  Nothing  whatever  had  been  said  about 
me,  and  tliere  was  nothing  that,  in  the  mind  of 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TFIEOBIES.  109 

the  psychic,  could  have  associated  the  visitor 
with  me. 

One  case  more  only   will  I  mention  under 

this  head.     A  most  intimate  friend  of  my  youth 

had  recently  died.     She  had  Kved  in  another 

State,  and  the  psychic  did  not  know  that  such  a 

person  had  ever  existed.     We  were  sitting  alone 

when  this  old  friend  announced  her  presence. 

It  was  in  this  way  :    A  letter  of  two  pages  was 

automatically    written,    addressed    to    me.       I 

thought  to  myself  as  I  read  it — I  did  not  speak — 

"  Were  it  possible,  I  should  feel  sure  she  had 

written  this."     I  then  said,  as  though  speaking 

to  her  :    "  Will  you  not  give  me  your  name  ?  " 

It  was  given,  both  maiden  and  married  name. 

I  then  began   a  conversation  lasting  over  an 

hour,  which  seemed  as  real  as  any  I  ever  have 

with  my  friends.     She  told  me  of  her  children, 

of  her  sisters.     We  talked  over  the  events  of 

boyhood  and   girlhood.      I  asked  her  if  she 

remembered  a  book  we  used  to  read  together, 

and  she  o-ave  me  the  author's  name.     I  asked 

again  if  she  remembered   the  particular  poem 


110        PSYCTIICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

we  were  both  specially  fond  of,  and  she  named 
it  at  once.  In  the  letter  that  was  written,  and 
in  mnch  of  the  conversation,  there  were  apparent 
Innts  of  identity,  little  touches  and  peculiarities 
that  would  mean  much  to  an  acquaintance,  but 
nothing  to  a  stranger.  I  could  not  but  be 
much  impressed. 

Now,  in  this  case,  I  know  that  the  psychic 
never  knew  of  this  person's  existence,  and  of 
course  not  of  our  acquaintance.  But  I  got 
nothing  that  I  did  not  know,  and  so  I  am  not 
sure  that  this  went  beyond  the  limits  of  tele- 
pathy. But,  if  telepathy,  it  was  entirely  un- 
conscious on  the  psychic's  part.  And  in  this 
case  there  was  no  trance.  I  could  fill  a  good- 
sized  book  with  cases  of  this  sort.  I  Avill, 
however,  only  set  up  an  interrogation  point 
and  pass  on. 

3.  In  the  third  place,  I  wish  to  offer  two  or 
three  typical  cases  in  which  the  mystery,  to  my 
mind,  grows  deeper  still.  In  these  instances 
the  information  imparted  was  not  known,  and 
could    not   have   been   known^  either   to   the 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXI)    TIIEOBIES.         HI 

psychic  or  to  myself,  the  only  other  person 
present.  It  was  afterward  found  to  be  true. 
These  are  peculiarly  interesting  to  me,  because 
I  do  not  see  how  the  theory  of  telepathy  can 
be  so  stretched  as  to  include  them. 

As  in  some  of  the  cases  already  described,  I 
was  sitting  with  my  psychic  friend,  who  is  not 
a  professional  and  whose  powers  are  known 
only  to  a  few  intimate  friends.  I  will  also  say 
of  her  that  she  does  not  always  possess  the 
power,  and  has  over  it  no  voluntary  control. 
She  simply  sits  and  waits,  and  sometimes  some- 
tliino-  occurs  and  sometimes  nothino-. 

On  one  of  these  occasions  a  dead  friend 
claimed  to  be  present.  She  had  one  living- 
sister,  married  and  settled  two  hundred  miles 
from  Boston.  After  the  ordinary  conversation, 
it  occurred  to  me  to  attempt  a  little  test.  I 
had  reason  to  suppose  that,  at  the  particidar 
time,  the  married  sister  was  in  another  town 
than  that  in  which  she  resided ;  so  the  bias  of 
my  mind  was  in  that  way.  I  note  this  because 
a  mind-reader  could  not  have  given  the  answer 


112         PS  Y CHICS :  FA  CIS  AND  THEORIES, 

I  received.  I  asked  this  supposed  "  spirit " 
friend  if  she  knew  where  her  sister  was  at  that 
hour.  The  answer  came  that  she  did  not  ;  and 
that  she  had  no  way  of  knowing,  any  more 
than  I  had,  unless  she  should  go  or  send  and 
find  out.  Then  I  said  :  "  Can  you  go  or  send 
for  me  ?  "  I  was  told  that  she  would  try,  and 
was  directed  to  wait.  For  fifteen  minutes 
everything  was  quiet.  Then  came  a  signal. 
I  asked  what  it  meant,  and  got  the  reply  that 
it  was  my  friend,  who  had  returned.  I  said  : 
"  Have  you  found  out  for  me  ?  "  The  answer 
was  :  "  Yes  ;  she  is  at  home  in  her  own  house. 
She  is  getting  ready  to  go  out." 

The  reply  was  entirely  contrary  to  my  ex- 
pectation, and  the  psychic  knew  nothing  about 
either  of  the  parties  concerned.  I  wrote  a 
letter  at  once  to  this  sister  of  my  dead  friend, 
and  asked  where  she  was  and  what  she  was 
doing  on  this  day  and  at  this  hour,  telling  her 
I  would  explain  later  why  I  wanted  to  know. 
In  due  course  the  answer  came,  saying :  "  I 
was  at  home  on  that  particular  forenoon,  and 


PSYCHICS  :  FACTS  AXD  TUEOlllES.        118 

at  about  the  hour  you  mention  I  made  a  call 
on  one  of  my  neighbors." 

At  another  sitting  with  the  same  psychic 
friend,  again  there  piu^ported  to  be  present  the 
"  spirit  "of  a  lady  I  had  known  for  years. 
Her  father's  family  and  mine  had  been  intimate 
when  we  were  young.  If  still  conscious,  she 
knew  I  was  greatly  interested  in  all  that  per- 
tained to  their  welfare.  She  told  me  of  a 
sister  married  and  living  in  another  State. 
She  said  :  "  Mary  is  in  a  great  deal  of  trouble. 
She  is  passing  through  the  greatest  sorrow  of 
her  life.  I  wish  I  could  make  her  know  that 
I  care.  I  wish  you  would  write  to  her."  As 
we  talked  the  matter  over,  she  explained  it 
to  me,  telling  me  at  first  vaguely,  as  though 
shrinking  from  speaking  plainly,  and  then 
more  clearly,  making  me  understand  that  the 
husband  was  the  cause  of  her  sorrow.  I  had 
not  seen  her  husband  more  than  once,  and  had 
never  dreamed  that  they  were  not  happy.  And 
the  psychic  had  never  heard  of  any  such  people. 
In  this  case,  also,  I  wrote  to  the  lady.     I  told 


114         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

her  I  would  explain  afterward,  but  for  the 
present  asked  her  only  to  let  me  know  if  she 
was  in  any  special  trouble  ;  and  provided  she 
wasj  and  the  nature  of  it  was  such  that  she 
could  properly  do  so,  to  tell  me  what  it  Avas. 
I  received  a  reply,  "  private  and  confidential/' 
confirming  everything  that  had  been  told  me 
in  the  privacy  of  my  own  study.  And  she 
closed  by  asking  me  to  burn  the  letter,  adding 
that  she  would  not  for  the  world  have  her 
husband  know  that  she  had  written  it. 

But  one  more  case  dare  I  take  the  space  for, 
though  the  budget  is  only  opened.  This  one 
did  not  happen  to  me;  but  it  is  so  hedged 
about  and  checked  off  that  its  evidential  value 
in  a  scientific  way  is  absolutely  perfect.  The 
names  of  some  of  the  parties  concerned  would 
be  recognized  in  two  hemisj)heres.  A  lady  and 
gentleman  visited  a  psychic.  The  gentleman 
was  the  lady's  brother-in-law.  The  lady  had 
an  aunt  who  was  ill  in  a  city  two  or  three  hun- 
dred miles  away.  When  the  psychic  had  be- 
come entranced,  the  lady  asked  her  if  she  had 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TIIEOHIES.         115 

any  impression  as  to  the  condition  of  her  aunt. 
The  reply  was,  ''  No."  But,  before  the  sitting 
was  over,  the  psychic  exclaimed:  "  Why,  your 
aunt  is  here  !  She  has  already  passed  away." 
"  This  cannot  be  true,"  said  the  lady  ;  '^  there 
must  be  a  mistake.  If  she  had  died,  they 
would  have  telegraphed  us  immediately." 
"  But,"  the  psychic  insisted,  "  she  is  here. 
And  she  explains  that  she  died  about  two 
o'clock  this  morning.  She  also  says  a  telegram 
has  been  sent,  and  you  will  find  it  at  the  house 
on  your  return." 

Here  seemed  a  clear  case  for  a  test.  So, 
while  the  lady  started  for  home,  her  brother-in- 
law  called  at  the  house  of  a  friend  and  told  the 
story.  While  there,  the  husband  came  in. 
Having  been  away  for  some  hours  he  had  not 
heard  of  any  telegram.  But  the  friend  seated 
himself  at  his  desk  and  wrote  out  a  careful 
account,  which  all  three  signed  on  the  spot. 
When  they  reached  home — two  or  three  miles 
away — there  was  the  telegram  confirming  the 


116         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  Til  TORIES. 

fact  and  the  time  of  the  aunt's  death,  precisely 
as  the  psychic  had  told  them. 

Here  are  most  wonderful  facts.  How  shall 
they  be  accounted  for  ?  I  have  not  trusted 
memory  for  these  things,  but  have  made  care- 
ful record  at  the  time.  I  know  many  other 
records  of  a  similar  kind  kept  by  others.  They 
are  kept  private.  Why  ?  Sometimes  it  is  for 
fear  of  being  thought  superstitious  ;  at  other 
times  it  is  because  of  a  wish  to  avoid  wound- 
ing the  feelings  of  friends  who,  for  religious 
or  other  reasons,  are  opposed  to  these  things. 
Then,  again,  the  communications  are  of  so 
personal  a  nature  that  they  are  spoken  of  only 
to  intimate  friends. 

Psychic  and  other  societies  that  advertise  for 
reports  of  strange  phenomena  must  learn  that 
at  least  a  respectful  treatment  is  to  be  accorded 
or  people  will  not  lay  bare  their  secret  souls. 
And  then,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  these 
experiences  concern  matters  of  the  most  per- 
sonal nature.  Many  of  the  most  striking  cases 
people  will  not  make  public.  In  some  of  those 
above  related,  I  have  had  so  to  veil  facts  that 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXU  THEORIES.         117 

they  do  not  appear  as  remarkable  as  they  really 
are.     The  whole  cannot  be  told. 

Of  course  I  have  detailed  only  successful  ex- 
periments. At  many  a  sitting  I  have  gotten 
simply  notlimg.  Many  times  things  have  been 
told  me  that  were  not  true  :  many  times  I  could 
not  find  out  whether  they  were  true  or  not. 
Large  numbers  of  so-called  "mediums"  are 
impostors,  smart  knaves,  finding  it  easier  to 
trick  for  a  living  than  to  work  for  it.  Not 
only  is  there  much  of  fraud,  but  there  is  also 
a  large  amount  of  self-delusion,  on  the  part 
both  of  psychics  and  sitters.  There  is  no 
end  of  misinterpretation  of  things  that  actu- 
ally occur.  They  are  made  to  mean  all  sorts 
of  things  that  they  need  not  mean  at  all. 
But  all  this  ought  not  to  lead  the  careful 
student  to  disregard  one  genuine  fact,  however 
small  it  may  appear.  Each  case  is  to  be  taken 
by  itself.  Scientific  men  know  the  value  of 
even  slight  things.  If  it  be  a  fact,  place  must 
be  made  for  it,  and  an  explanation  found  if 
possible. 


118         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  TIIEOllIES. 

When  I  began  this  article  I  intended  to 
offer  some  carefully-verified  cases  of  visicii  on 
the  part  of  both  the  dying  and  the  living,  as 
well  as  some  instances  of  the  appearances  of 
those  newly  dead  to  friends  at  a  distance.  Of 
the  first  I  have  seen  some  most  remarkable, 
where  the  dying  person,  along  with  those 
known  to  be  dead,  suddenly  recognized  some 
one  supposed  to  be  still  living,  expressing  the 
greatest  astonishment  at  seeing  this  one  with 
the  others.  Of  the  second,  I  have  cases  occur- 
ring in  the  experience  of  personal  friends,  which 
I  have  so  carefully  verified  that  I  do  not  know 
how  to  get  rid  of  them  or  to  disregard  them. 
But  I  must  pass  them  by  for  the  present. 

I  have  given  only  selected  specimens  out  of 
a  large  collection.  I  do  not  know  what  they 
mean  ;  but  I  believe  that  the  statements  I  have 
made  are  true.  Some  reader  will  doubtless 
sneer.  Some  will  say  "  crank."  Some  will 
think  the  writer  easily  "  gulled."  But,  if  not 
this  year,  at  some  time,  a  wiser  person  will 
explain  them.     Then,  if  we  do  not  know  any 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AyU  THEORIES.         119 

more  about  any  next  world,  perhaps  we  may 
have  an  extension  of  our  knowlecloe  about  this 
one.  It  is  a  great  universe,  and  a  strange 
one.  We  are  strange  beings,  and  as  yet  know 
but  little  as  to  our  own  selves.  Only  the  shal- 
lowest think  they  know  it  all. 


120         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  TEEORIES. 


CHAPTER  V. 

I  HAVE  now  given  my  readers  a  large 
number  of  facts.  But  facts  are  worth  little 
unless  one  knows  what  to  do  with  them.  Aris- 
totle was  in  possession  of  certain  facts,  and 
from  them  he  argued  that  the  earth  was  a 
sphere ;  but  for  hundreds  of  years  after  his  time 
the  wise  men  of  the  world  came  to -quite  other 
conclusions.  This  was  either  because  they 
were  not  wise  enough  to  comprehend  their  sig- 
nificance, or,  as  was  more  commonly  the  case, 
because  they  were  dominated  by  some  bias  that 
led  them  to  adopt  a  contrary  theory.  It  is 
this  latter  thing  that  stands  more  in  the  Avay  of 
truth  than  does  ignorance  itself.  In  religion, 
in  politics,  in  political  economy,  in  all  direc- 
tions there  are  facts  enough  ;  but  the  majority 
of  people  are  prepossessed  by  theories  which 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES.  121 

hinder  their  seeing  the  real  meaning  of  the 
facts. 

I  shall  then  have  rendered  a  very  incomplete 
service  to  those  who  have  taken  note  of  my 
facts  if  I  stop  with  these.  It  remains  for  me 
therefore  to  indicate  the  present  status  of 
psychical  inquiry,  and  to  point  out  what  seems 
to  me  the  significance  of  my  facts.  I  do  not 
claim  to  be  so  wise  here  that  my  conclusions 
will  be  free  of  all  error,  but  without  immodesty 
I  can  claim  one  thing :  I  am  not  dominated  by 
any  theory,  and  am  under  no  bias  to  come 
to  any  particular  conclusion.  Indeed,  I  have 
reached  a  point  in  my  thinking  where  I  find  it 
hard  to  comprehend  how  any  sane  man  should 
even  wish  to  discover  anything  but  the  truth. 
I  know  there  are  such  people,  because  they 
have  told  me  that  they  were  content  with  their 
present  beliefs,  and  even  though  they  were 
wrong,  they  did  not  want  to  find  it  out.  But 
I  do  not  wish  to  be  even  pleasantly  fooled.  I 
wish  to  know  the  truth  and  adjust  myself  to  it. 

I  cannot,  indeed,  agree  with  those  who  say 


l'2-2         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOEIES. 

that,  if  there  be  no  other  life,  this  present  life 
is  not  worth  having.     For — 

— When  I  look  upon  the  langhmg  face 
Of  children,  or  on  woman's  gentle  grace  ; 
Or  when  I  grasp  a  true  friend  by  the  hand, 
And  feel  a  bond  I  partly  understand  ; 
When  niountams  thrill  me,  or  when  by  the  sea 
The  plaintive  waves  rehearse  their  mystery  ; 
Or  when  I  watch  the  moon  with  strange  delight 
Treading  her  i^athway  'mid  the  stars  at  night ; 
Or  when  the  one  I  love,  with  kisses  prest, 
I  clasp  with  bliss  unspoken  to  my  breast ; — 
So  strange,  so  deep,  so  wondrous,  life  appears, 
I  liave  no  words,  but  only  happy  tears. 
I  cannot  think  it  all  shall  end  in  naught ; 
That  the  abyss  shall  be  the  grave  of  thought ; 
That  ^'er  oblivion's  shoreless  sea  shall  roll 
O'er  love  and  wonder  and  the  lifeless  soul. 
But  e'en  though  this  the  end,  I  cannot  say 
I'm  sorry  I  have  seen  the  light  of  day. 
So  wondrous  seems  this  life  I  live  to  me, 
Whate'er  the  end,  to-day  I  have  and  see  ; 
To-day  I thinh  and  hope  :  and  so  for  this, — 
If  tliis  be  all, — for  just  so  much  of  bliss. 
Bliss  blended  through  with  pain,  I  bless  the  Power 
That  holds  me  up  to  gaze  one  loondrous  hour  ! 

If,  then,  this  is   all,  I  want  to  know  it  and 
make  the  most  of  it.     If  it  is  only  the  begin- 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.  123 

ning,  I  want  to  know  that,  and  lay  out  my  life 
on  a  scale  proportioned  to  the  magnificence  of 
its  possibilities.  And  I  can  conceive  of  no 
knowledge  that  for  one  moment  matches  this 
in  importance. 

Before  treating  the  present  standing  of 
psychical  inquiry,  it  is  needful  to  note  certain 
preceding  conditions  of  human  thought  out  of 
which  present  conditions  have  been  evolved. 
In  the  pre-critical  and  unscientific  ages,  the  be- 
lief in  continued  existence  and  some  sort  of  m- 
tercourse  between  spirits  and  mortals  was  practi- 
cally  universal.  In  the  general  ignorance  of  nat- 
ural laws,  people  were  not  troubled  by  questions 
of  possible  or  impossible.  All  forces  and  hap- 
penings were  interpreted  in  terms  of  Avill  or  cap- 
rice ;  and  the  supernatural  presented  no  difficulty 
because  there  was,  in  their  minds,  no  natural 
order.  There  being  no  standards  of  proba- 
bility, what  to-day  is  meant  by  proof  was  not 
only  not  demanded,  it  was  not  even  understood. 
The  journey  of  Odysseus  to  Hades  was  as  be- 
lievable as  was  the  voyage  of  the  latest  Phoeni- 


124         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  TIIEOBIES. 

cian  navigator.  The  appearance  of  spirits^ 
messages  from  the  invisible  world,  and  celestial 
or  demoniac  interferences  with  human  affairs 
were  a  part  of  all  religions  and  of  daily  life. 
The  Bibles  of  all  peoples  and  all  ancient  litera- 
tures are  abundant  witnesses  to  these  facts.  If 
any  one  wishes  to  come  in  personal  contact 
with  this  condition  of  the  human  mind,  he  need 
not  go  further  than  to  the  devout  Catholic 
servants  of  his  own  household. 

As  children  now  are  afraid  of  the  dark,  the 
lonely,  the  mysterious,  so  it  was  natural  that  in 
the  childhood  of  the  world  men  should  be  afraid 
of  the  invisible.  They  were  in  terror  at  the 
thought  of  the  possible  return  of  even  their 
most  intimate  friends.  The  gods  themselves 
were  not  regarded  as  over  kind,  and  their  wrath 
must  be  placated  or  their  favor  purchased  by 
gifts.  Perhaps,  therefore,  it  is  not  strange  that 
these  feelings  linger  still.  Most  people  to-day, 
like  Madame  de  Stael,  are  afraid  of  ghosts  even 
though  they  do  not  believe  in  them  ;  and  there 
are  few  who  are  brave  enough  to  spend  a  night 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  A XI)  THEORIES.         125 

alone  in  the  room  with  the  hody  of  the  one 
they  have  h)ved  best  in  all  the  Avorld.  This 
state  of  mind  makes  it  exceedingly  difficult  for 
people  to  treat  these  psychical  investigations 
in  a  rational  way.  Among  those  who  believe 
that  "the  dead''  are  still  alive,  there  is  a  gen- 
eral impression  that  the  fact  of  death  has  pro- 
duced some  marvellous  and  maoical  chancre  so 
that  they  are  real  human  follvs  no  longer. 
The  imagination  is  full  of  either  angels  or 
devils,  so  that  they  are  troubled  with  all  sorts 
of  theories  as  to  what  is  fitting  or  becoming, 
instead  of  being  ready  to  note  facts  first  and 
then  see  what  they  mean  afterwards. 

But  as  one  of  the  results  of  modern  science, 
there  has  been,  in  the  minds  of  the  learned,  a 
violent  reaction  against  the  superstitions  or 
over-behefs  of  the  past.  This  is  entirely  healthy, 
provided  science  itself  does  not  become  a  su23er- 
stition.  But  a  scientific  theory  may  become 
as  serious  a  barrier  against  the  acceptance  of  a 
ncAV  truth  as  vulgar  prejudice  itself.  Witness 
the  scientific  authority  of  Newton  as  it  blinds 


126         PSYCHICS:  FuiCTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

the  eyes  of  the  learned  to  the  truth  of  Young's 
theory  of  light,  or  note  the  attitude  of  Agassiz 
in  the  matter  of  evolution.  Professor  Huxley 
has  written,  with  all  his  power  of  sarcasm, 
against  modern  spiritualism.  And  yet  Profes- 
sor Wallace,  at  least  his  peer  in  scientific 
eminence,  told  me  that  he  had  repeatedly  tried  to 
get  Huxley  to  join  him  in  investigating  these 
matters,  and  he  would  not.  To  the  mind  of 
the  ultra-scientist  all  these  stories  of  the  child- 
hood world  are  so  childish  that  they  are  to  be 
rejected  in  the  lump,  without  being  accorded 
even  the  dignity  of  an  investigation.  I  agree 
with  this  scientific  reaction  to  the  extent  of 
holding  that  they  are  all  to  be  put  aside  and 
labelled  "  Not  proved  "  ;  that  is,  the  basis  on 
which  they  rest,  whether  in  Bibles  or  out  of 
Bibles,  is  inadequate,  and  does  not  in  any  case 
amount  to  demonstration.  But  it  is  going 
away  beyond  any  truly  scientific  warrant  to 
say  that  none  of  them  may  be  true.  And  if,  in 
the  modern  world,  any  similar  stories  should  be 
scientifically  established  as  true,  then  it  would 


P PSYCHICS:  FACTS  ASD  TllKOlilES.         127 

be  fully  ill  accord  with  the  scientific  method  to 
reconsider  all  or  any  one  of  these  traditional 
stories,  and  estimate  the  degree  of  probability 
in  its  favor. 

Ciu'iously  various  and  contradictory  have 
been  the  positions  of  different  classes  of  think- 
ers and  of  those  who  do  not  think  in  the 
modern  world.  One  class  has  held  that  all 
these  things  were  childish  and  superstitious, 
and  that  only  ignorant  or  flighty  people  could 
take  any  stock  in  them.  Members  of  this  class 
smile  wisely,  not  to  say  superciliously,  when 
any  of  these  matters  are  mentioned.  It  is  this 
attitude  of  the  "  Unco  "  wise  (for  there  is  an 
"  unco "  ^Wse  as  well  as  an  "  unco  guid  ") 
wdiicli  led  a  philosopher,  known  in  two  hemis- 
pheres, to  say  to  me :  "  Well,  Savage,  suppose  we 
become  convinced  that  these  things  are  true,  it 
will  only  be  a  couple  more  cranks.'"  Then  there 
are  the  ordinary  Protestant  Christians,  who  ac- 
cept such  stories  as  are  told  in  the  Bible,  and 
reject  all  others,  whether  ancient  or  modern. 
Of  course  this  is  a  matter  of  religious  "  faith," 


128         FSYCmCS:  FACTS  AND  THEOllIES. 

not  reason.  Again,  there  are  the  Catholics, 
who  believe  not  only  the  stories  told  in  the 
Bible,  but  all  such  as  are  indorsed  by  the 
Church,  either  in  mediaeval  or  modern  times. 
Once  more,  there  are  the  Swedenborgians,  who 
accept  the  stories  of  their  founder.  They  also 
believe  in  the  possibility  of  spirit  intercourse 
to-day,  but  hold  it  unwise  if  not  dangerous. 
Then  there  are  men  like  the  late  Professor  Aus- 
tin Phelps  of  Andover,  who  "know"  that 
spirits  do  interfere  with  human  affairs,  but 
believe  that  they  are  always  evil  spirits.  Per- 
haps it  is  consistent  with  that  theology  which 
he  represented,  to  believe  that  God  will  permit 
devils  to  overrun  the  earth,  but  forbid  the  good 
spirits  to  make  their  presence  known.  Such, 
then,  are  some  of  the  points  of  view  from  which 
these  matters  have  been  regarded  up  to  the 
time  when  they  began  to  be  approached  in  a 
rational  and  scientific  manner. 

It  is  doubtless  due  to  the  experiments  of 
Mesmer  in  France,  and  the  Rochester  rappings 
that  the  era  of  scientific  psychical  research  has 


PsrCllICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.         129 

at  last  been  reached.  I  do  uot  at  all  mean  to 
say  that  the  former  were  the  cause,  m  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  of  the  latter.  I  only 
mean  that  mesmerism  and  spiritualism,  with 
their  allied  phenomena,  resulted  at  last  in  such 
a  widespread  and  popular  interest  in  the  prob- 
lems involved  as  to  lead  certain  people  to  feel 
that  the  question  Avas  worthy  of  serious  atten- 
tion and  ought  not  longer  to  be  postponed. 
The  attitude  of  Professor  Henry  Sidgwick  of 
Cambridge,  England,  the  great  writer  on  ethics 
indicates  what  I  mean.  In  his  first  address  as 
president  of  the  English  Society  for  Psychical 
Eesearch,  he  declared  it  to  be  "  a  scandal  " 
that  a  matter  of  so  great  importance,  and  in- 
volving the  life  interests  of  so  many  people, 
was  not  scientifically  investigated  and  settled  ; 
and  the  first  time  that  so  significant  a  thing 
ever  occurred,  Professor  Ohver  Lodge  of  Liver- 
pool, in  his  address  as  president  of  the  Physi- 
cal and  Mathematical  Section  of  the  British 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science, 
only  last  year,  took  similar  ground,  and  chal- 


130         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES, 

lenged  the  attention  and  interest  of  the  leading 
scientific  men  of  Great  Britain. 

Men  had  come  to  feel,  in  vievf  of  the  fact 
that  so  many  thousands  uncritically  accepted 
the  claims  of  spiritualism  on  the  one  hand,  and 
so  many  were  hungry  for  a  belief  that  their 
reasons  forbade,  on  the  other,  that  the  truth, 
if  possible,  ought  to  be  known.  They  saw 
that  either  thousands  of  people  were  deluded, 
and  that  it  was  worth  while  to  help  them  out 
of  their  delusion,  or  that  something  was  true 
which  might  comfort  and  help  other  thousands 
who  stood  helpless  and  hopeless  in  the  presence 
of  ^'  the  great  mystery."  It  was  out  of  such 
convictions  that  the  movement  for  psychical 
research  was  born. 

Every  little  while,  still,  some  presumably  wise 
scientific  man  sneers  at  the  whole  thing,  and 
treats  the  search  as  though  it  were  on  a  level 
with  the  "  Hunting  of  the  Snark."  A  certain 
class  of  newspapers  also  treat  it  as  though  it 
were  fair  game  for  the  jester's  column,  classing 
the  "  spook "  and  the   sea  serpent  as  equally 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.         131 

legitimate  prey  for  the  limp-mincled  humorist 
of  the  "  silly  season."  It  will  not  therefore  be 
time  thrown  away  if  we  spend  a  little  in  con- 
sidering as  to  whether  psychical  research  is 
really  a  rational  scientific  inquiry. 

There  are  two  great  universe  theories,  some 
variety  of  one  or  other  of  which  we  all  hold. 
One  is  the  materialistic  theory,  which  teaches 
that  in  some  way  life  is  the  outcome  of  matter, 
the  product  of  organization.  It  is  generally 
supposed  to  be  the  necessary  consequence  of 
this  theory  that  the  conscious  life  of  the  in- 
dividual ceases  with  the  death  of  the  visible 
body.  I  have  not  been  quite  able  to  see  why, 
however,  for  there  may  be  an  invisible  body ; 
and  if  matter  is  able  to  produce  a  conscious, 
thinking  person,  who  is  wise  enough  to  say 
that  this  same  matter  may  not  be  able  to  con- 
tinue the  life  in  some  invisible  form  ?  For  it 
seems  to  me  that  Thomas  Paine  did  not  at  all 
exceed  the  bounds  of  reason  when  he  said,  "  It 
appears  more  probable  to  me  that  I  shall  con- 
tinue to  exist  hereafter,  than  that  I  should  have 


V6-2        PSYCHICS  :  FACTS  AXU  THEORIES. 

existence,  as  I  now  have,  before  that  existence 
began." 

But  whatever  may  be  the  truth  of  this,  the 
old,  crude  theories  of  materiahsm  are  anti- 
quated, and  "  dead  matter  "  is  philosophically 
and  scientifically  unknown.  Tlie  only  mate- 
rialists to-day  are  a  few  belated  survivals,  fossils 
of  a  bygone  period  of  human  thought.  Even 
Clifford,  before  he  died,  was  talking  of  '^  mind- 
stuff  "  as  connected  with  matter.  Haeckol,  the 
nearest  to  a  materialist  of  any  great  living 
thinker,  must  have  his  "  atom-souls  "  in  order 
to  account  for  facts.  Schopenhauer  must  have 
his  ^^  world- will,"  and  Hartmann  his  "  Uncon- 
scious "  with  a  capital  U.  Huxley,  though  the 
inventor  of  the  term  "  Agnostic,"  declares  that 
sooner  than  accept  the  old  materialism  he  could 
adopt  the  ultra-idealism  of  Bishop  Berkeley. 
And  Herbert  Spencer,  easily  prince  of  them 
all,  says  that  the  one  thing  we  know,  more 
certainly  than  we  know  any  isolated  or  individ- 
ual fact,  is  the  existence  of  the  one  Eternal 
Energy  back  of  all  phenomena,  and  of  which 


PSYCHICS  :  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  133 

all  phenomena  are  only  partial  manifestations. 
Materialism,  then,  is  dead,  and  spiritualism 
(of  course  I  am  using  the  term  philosophically 
now)  is  taking  its  place.  This  theory  puts 
life  back  of  form,  and  makes  it  the  cause,  and 
not  the  product,  of  organization.  This  does 
not  teach  that  man  has  a  soul.  That  sort  of 
talk  belongs  to  the  old  theology  : — 

"  A  charge  to  keep  I  have, 
A  God  to  glorify  ; 
A  never-dying  soul  to  save 
And  fit  it  for  the  slvy." 

If  man  is  thouo-ht  of  as  "  ha  vino-  "  a  soul 
which  he  may  "  lose,"  it  is  but  a  stej)  to  think- 
ing of  him  as  a  being  independent  of  his  soul, 
and  as  getting  along  T\'ithout  it.  This  theory 
rather  teaches  that  man  h  a  soul,  and  has  a 
body ;  and  on  that  theory,  it  is  purely  a  rational 
question  as  to  whether  he  may  not  be  able  to 
get  along  without  the  present  and  visible  body. 

And  here  we  need  to  note  to  what  an  extent 
we  are  the  fools  of  our  eyes  and  ears.  It  is 
common  to  imagine  that  we  can  see  all  that  is, 


lai        PSYCHICS:  FACTS  A^^D  THEORIES. 

if  only  it  is  near  enough  to  us,  and  that  we  can 
hear  all  "  sounds  "  that  are  not  too  far  away. 
As  matter  of  fact,  it  is  only  the  very  smallest 
part  of  the  real  world  of  things  about  us  that 
we  are  able  either  to  see  or  hear.  Vibrations 
that  reach  a  certain  number  in  a  second  pro- 
duce an  effect  on  the  eye  which,  when  trans- 
mitted to  the  brain  is,  in  some  way,  quite  in- 
comprehensible to  us,  transformed  into  vision. 
When  these  vibrations  pass  a  certain  other 
number  in  rapidity,  then  they  lose  the  power  to 
produce  the  sense  of  seeing.  It  is  then  only 
within  very  narrow  limits  that  we  see  ;  while 
on  both  sides  of  these  limits  there  is  a  practical 
infinity  that  to  us  is  invisible,  though  no  whit 
less  real  than  that  which  we  speak  of  as  seeing. 
And  all  the  while  it  isn't  the  eye,  nor  the  brain, 
nor  any  visible  thing  that  sees  even  the  com- 
monest object ;  it  is  the  I,  the  self,  the  soul 
only  that  ever  sees.  A  precisely  similar  thing 
is  true  of  hearing. 

It  is  not  science,  but  only  shallow  sciolism 
that  assumes  that  our  present  senses  are  a  meas- 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEOBIES.         135 

lire  o£  the  universe.  Men  like  Professor  Crookes 
and  Nicola  Tesla  are  already  on  the  eve  of  phys- 
ical discoveries  that  promise  to  reveal  to  us 
forms  and  conditions  of  matter  quite  unlike 
those  with  which  we  are  already  familiar.  For 
anything  at  present  known  to  the  contrary,  the 
soul  or  the  self  may  emerge  from  the  experi- 
ence we  call  death  with  a  body  as  real  and  much 
more  completely  alive  than  the  present  visible 
body,  and  which  shall  yet  be  invisible,  inau- 
dible, and  intangible  to  our  ordinary  senses. 

Indeed  "  spirit  photography,"  whether  true  or 
not,  is  not  at  all  absurd  or  scientifically  impos- 
sible in  the  nature  of  thinsfs.  The  sensitized 
plate  can  '^  see  "  better  than  the  ordinary  human 
eye,  for  it  can  photograph  an  "  invisible  "  star. 
It  may  then  photograph  an  invisible  "  spiritual 
body,"  provided  any  such  body  really  exists. 

As  to  the  possible  existence  of  a  "  spiritual  " 
world  in  the  neio^hborhood  of  the  earth,  I  need 
only  quote  Young,  who  lived  not  long  after 
Newton,  and  who  is  the  famous  scientist  who 
discovered  and  demonstrated  the  present  uni- 


136         PSYCrilCS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

versally  accepted  theory  o£  light.  Jevons,  in 
his  "  Principles  of  Science "  (Third  edition, 
Macmillan  &  Company,  1879),  page  516,  says, 
"  We  cannot  deny  even  the  strange  snggestion 
of  Young,  that  there  may  he  independent  worlds, 
some  possihly  existing  in  different  parts  of 
space,  but  others  perhaps  pervading  each  other, 
unseen  and  unknown  in  the  same  space."  It 
is  not  scientific  wisdom,  then,  but  only  scien- 
tific ignorance  or  prejudice  that  supposes  that 
the  student  engaged  in  the  work  of  psychical 
research  need  apologize  to  science.  There  is 
nothing  which  his  work  pre-supposes  that  in 
any  Avay  whatever  contradicts  any  established 
principle  or  verified  conclusion  of  science. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  and  considering 
the  character  and  the  learning  of  those  engaged 
in  the  work,  it  is  time  that  the  silly  attitude  to- 
ward it  were  given  up.  The  time  is  passing 
away  when  such  a  remark  as  the  following  should 
be  possible.  The  Reverend  J.  G.  Wood  was  a 
clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  a 
world-famous  naturalist.     As  the  result  of  years 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.         137 

of  careiai  investigati(3n,  he  became  a  firm  be- 
liever in  the  "  spirit  "world,  and  in  communi- 
cation between  that  v/orld  and  this.     Some  years 
ago  he  was  in  Boston,  giving  a  course   of  lec- 
tures before  the  Lowell  Institute.     In  conver- 
sation with  him  at  that  time,  he  spoke  freely  of 
his  experiences,  and  told  me  stories  as  wonder- 
ful as  any  I  have  ever  heard.     He  said  :    ''  I  do 
not  talk  about  these  things  with  everybody.     I 
used  to  think  anybody  who  had  anything  to  do 
with  them  was  a  fool,  and  " — he  added  with  a 
look  that  told    of  frequent    contact  Avith  the 
"  unco  "  wise — ''  I  do  not  enjoy  being  called  a 
fooiy     It  is  time,  I  say,  that  this  sort  of  thing 
were  o'one  by.     The  wdse  man  whose   whole 
stock  in  trade  on  this   subject  is  an  ignorance 
only  less  than  his  prejudice,  will  soon  learn  that 
it  is  not  entirely  scientific  to  "  know  all  about" 
a  matter  about  which  he  really  knows  nothing 

at  all. 

This,  then,  is  a  subject  as  fairly  open  to 
scientific  investigation  as  is  the  germ  theory  of 
disease,  or  the  present  condition  of  the  planet 


138         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOEIES. 

Mars.     It  is  purely  a  question  of  fact  and  evi- 
dence. 

I  had  begun  a  careful  study  of  these  questions 
Avhen  as  yet  there  was  no  English  Society  for 
Psychical  Research.  Before  touching  on  the 
work  that  has  been  done,  and  the  theories  pro- 
pounded since  that  organization,  I  wish  to  say 
a  few  things  concerning  my  own  personal  atti- 
tude. I  do  this,  not  because  I  imagine  that 
my  own  motives  and  actions  are  of  any  public 
importance  in  themselves ;  but  in  one  way  they 
may  be  of  a  good  deal  of  unportance  to  those 
who  may  be  interested  in  the  work  I  have  done, 
and  the  conclusions  I  have  reached  in  the 
matter  of  psychical  study.  If,  in  the  case  of 
the  so-called  exact  sciences, — like  the  work  of 
observation  in  astronomy, — the  '^  personal  equa- 
tion "  has  to  be  taken  account  of,  much  more 
is  it  necessary  in  studies  like  these,  where  ex- 
perience, power  of  exact  observation,  motive, 
and  purpose  may  either  practically  assure  or 
vitiate  results.  Since  then  I  have  ventured  to 
lay  before  the  public  so  large  a  number  of 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEOUIES.  139 

caseSj  my  readers  have  a  right  to  know  so  much 
of  my  personal  attitude  and  methods  as  will 
help  them  to  estimate  the  value  of  these  cases. 

My  evangelical  training  had  prepared  me  to 
look  upon  all  these  things  with  suspicion.  I 
believed  the  whole  business  to  be  either  fraud 
or  delusion  or  "  nerves."  I  do  not  think  I 
traced  it  to  the  devil,  as  so  many  others  did, 
but  I  felt  sure  that  it  had  "better  be  let  alone." 
I  felt  towards  it  as  all  the  "respectable"  people 
of  Jerusalem  and  Corinth  and  Rome  felt  towards 
Christianity — that  at  best  it  was  "a  pestilent 
superstition."  On  tlie  basis  of  "  invincible 
ignorance/'  I  once  delivered  a  scathing  lecture 
against  it,  and  perhaps  wondered  a  little  that 
certain  obstinate  people  still  continued  to  be- 
lieve in  it  after  I  was  done. 

But  about  seventeen  years  ago,  a  year  or  so 
after  coming  to  Boston,  the  father  of  one  of 
my  parishioners  died.  Soon  after  she  came  to 
me,  saying  she  had  been  with  a  friend  to  con- 
sult a  "  medium."  As  she  thought,  certain 
very  striking  things  had  been  told  her,  and  she 


140       psyriiirs:  facts  axd  ttieobies. 

wished  my  counsel  and  advice.  Then  it  came 
to  me  with  a  shock  that  I  had  no  business  to 
offer  advice  on  a  subject  concerning  which  my 
entire  stock  of  preparation  consisted  of  a 
bundle  of  prejudices.  Then  I  began  to  reflect 
that  this  one  parishioner  was  not  alone  in  want- 
ing advice  on  this  subject ;  and  I  said  to  my- 
self, whether  this  be  truth  or  delusion,  it  is 
equally  important  that  I  know  about  it  so  as 
to  be  the  competent  adviser  of  those  who  come 
to  me  for  direction.  I  should  have  felt  ashamed 
to  have  had  no  opinion  on  the  Old  Testament 
theophanies  or  the  New  Testament  stories  of 
spirit  appearances  or  demoniacal  possessions. 
Why  should  I  pride  myself  on  my  ignorance 
of  matters  of  far  more  practical  importance  to 
my  people  ?  As  a  part  of  my  equipment  for 
the  ministry,  then,  I  said  to  myself,  I  must 
study  these  things  until  I  have  at  least  an  in- 
telligent opinion.  Such,  then,  were  the  cir- 
cumstances and  motives  that  led  to  my  pro- 
longed investigation. 

Since  then  I  have  improved  every  available 


PSYCniCS:  FACTS  AND  THEOUIES.         141 

opportuiiity  to  study  these  things.  I  have  had 
no  prurient  curiosity  as  to  any  other  possible 
world,  neither  have  I  made  it  my  chief  object 
to  see  if  I  could  oet  into  communication  with 
personal  friends.  I  have  studied  these  phenom- 
ena, first,  as  bearing  on  the  nature  and  powers 
of  the  mind,  as  here  embodied,  and  then  with 
a  view  to  finding  out  if  any  proof  could  be  ob- 
tained that  personal,  conscious  existence  sur- 
vives the  experience  we  call  death.  For  only 
a  superficial  knowledge  of  the  drift  of  popular 
opinion  is  needed  to  show  that  if  the  belief  in 
a  future  life  is  to  continue  as  a  life-motive 
among  men,  it  must  be  based  on  something 
more  recent  and  authentic  than  a  shifting 
ecclesiastical  tradition  two  thousand  years  old. 
The  Catholic  church  is  wise  enough  to  see  this. 
And  the  attitude  of  the  Protestant  church  is  a 
curiously  inconsistent  one,  particularly  when 
one  remembers  that  the  "  facts  "  on  which  it 
relies  are  of  precisely  a  similar  kind  to  the 
modern  ones  it  contemptuously  rejects. 

In  my  studies  I   have  sought  faithfully  to 


142         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEOBIES. 

follow  the  scientific  method,  which  I  regard  as 
the  only  method  of  knoAvledge.  By  carefnl 
observation  and  rigid  experiment  I  have  tried, 
first,  to  be  sure  that  I  have  discovered  a  fact. 
Of  this  fact  I  have  made  a  record  at  the  time. 
I  have  paid  no  attention  to  results  apparently 
obtained  in  the  dark,  or  in  circumstances  where 
I  could  not  be  certain  as  to  what  was  taking- 
place.  I  have  not  said  that  all  these  were 
fraud,  but  I  have  never  given  them  weight  as 
evidence.  I  have  made  a  study  of  sleight  of 
hand,  and  am  quite  aware  of  all  the  possibilities 
of  trickery.  But  to  imitate  an  occurrence, 
under  other  conditions,  is  not  to  duplicate  a 
fact.  The  larger  number  of  those  occurrences 
which  have  actually  influenced  my  belief  have 
taken  place  in  the  presence  of  long-tried  per- 
sonal friends,  and  not  with  professional  "  me- 
diums" at  all. 

When  at  last  I  have  been  sure  of  a  fact,  I 
have  stretched  and  strained  all  known  methods 
and  theories  in  the  attempt  to  explain  it  without 
resorting  to  any  supposed  "spiritual"  agency. 


PsrcniCS:  facts  AXD  TIIEOIIIES.  14o 

I  say  "  spiritual "  and  not  su23ernatural,  for  I 
do  not  believe  in  any  supernatural.  In  my 
conception  of  the  universe  whatever  is,  is 
natural.  If  "spirits"  exist,  their  invisibility 
does  not  make  them  supernatural  any  more 
than  the  atom  of  science  is  to  be  regarded  as 
supernatural  for  a  similar  reason.  And  when 
at  last  I  discovered  facts  which  I  am  utterly 
unable  to  explain  without  supposing  the  pres- 
ence and  agency  of  in^4sible  intelligences, 
even  then  I  have  not  positively  taken  that  step. 
For  the  present,  at  least,  I  only  wait.  The 
facts  will  keep ;  and  if  the  wisdom  of  the  world 
is  able  to  discover  any  other  explanation,  I  am 
quite  ready  to  accept  it.  Stronger  than  my 
desire  to  conquer  death  is  my  desire  not  to  be 
fooled,  or  to  be  the  means,  ever  so  honestly,  of 
leading  astray  any  who  might  put  their  trust 
in  my  conclusions  ;  but  I  have  discovered  facts 
which  I  cannot  explain,  and  they  seem  to  point 
directly  to  the  conclusion  that  the  self  does  not 
die,  and  that  it  is,  in  certain  conditions,  able  to 
communicate  mth  those  still  in  the  flesh.     It 


144         r  S  }  ^allies :  FA  CIS  A  ^'l)  Til  FOB  IE  S. 

may  be  proper  to  add  here  that  the  leading 
man  in  the  English  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  has  piihlished 
the  fact  that,  as  the  result  of  his  investigations, 
he  has  become  convinced  of  "  continued  per- 
sonal existence  and  of  at  least  occasional  com- 
munication." The  secretary  of  the  American 
Branch  of  the  English  Society,  Mr.  Richard 
Hodgson,  LL.D.,  has  given  to  the  world  a 
similar  conviction. 

It  is  time  now  for  me  to  indicate  certain 
results  which  I  resfard  as  Avell  established. 
There  will  be  no  room  here  for  detail.  For 
illustration,  and  for  cases  other  than  those  I 
have  already  given,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
reports  and  books  published  by  the  English 
Society.     What,  then,  are  some  of  the  results  ? 

1.  Mesmerism,  under  its  new  name  of  hyp- 
notism, is  now  recognized  by  all  competent 
investigators.  Not  only  this,  but  it  is  being- 
resorted  to  in  the  treatment  of  disease  by  the 
best  physicians  of  France,  Germany,  England, 
and  America.     It  is  found  that  it  can  be  used 


FSYCUICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.  145 

in  surgical  operations  as  an  anaesthetic,  in  pia^  o 
of  ether.  In  the  hypnotic  state  many  strange 
phenomena  sometimes  appear,  such  as  the  dual 
personality,  clairvoyance  and  clairaudience,  that 
lead  the  student  into  other  departments  of 
psychical  research. 

2.  Clairvoyance  and  clairaudience  are  well 
estabhshed.  This  means  that,  in  certain  con- 
ditions, people  can  see  without  their  eyes  and 
hear  without  their  ears.  Facts  like  these  do 
not  take  one  "  out  of  the  body,"  but  they  do 
suggest,  Avith  somewhat  startling  force,  the 
query  as  to  whether  the  mind  is  necessarily  so 
dependent  on  our  ordinary  senses  as  is  com- 
monly supposed. 

3.  Next  comes  telepathy,  or  mind  reading. 

It  is  found  that  communication   of  thoughts, 

feelings,  and  even  events  in  detail,  is  possible 

between  minds  separated  by  distances  ranging 

from  a  few  feet  to  thousands  of  miles.      It  is 

suggested  that  the   explanation  may  be  found 

in  the  theory  of  ethereal  vibrations  set  up  by 

the  activity  of  the  brain  particles  whose  motion 

10 


146        PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

accompanies  all  thought  and  feeling;  but  in  any 
case  the  facts  are  none  the  less  wonderful. 

4.  Next  come  what  are  ordinarily  classed 
together  as  "mediumistic  phenomena."  The 
most  important  of  these  are  psychometry, 
^S'ision"  of  "spirit"  forms,  claimed  communi- 
cations, by  means  of  rappings,  table  movements, 
automatic  writing,  independent  writing,  trance 
speaking,  etc.  With  them  also  ought  to  be 
noted  what  are  generally  called  physical  i^henom- 
ena,  though  in  most  cases,  since  they  are 
intelligibly  directed,  the  use  of  the  word 
"physical,"  without  this  qualification,  might 
be  misleading.  These  physical  phenomena 
include  such  facts  as  the  movement  of  material 
objects  by  other  than  the  ordinary  muscular 
force^  the  making  objects  heavier  or  lighter 
when  tested  by  the  scales,  the  playing  on 
musical  instruments  by  some  invisible  power, 
etc.  I  pass  by  the  question  of  "  materialization," 
because  I  have  never  seen  any  under  such  con- 
ditions as  rendered  fraud  impossible.  I  do  not 
feel  called  on  to  say  that  all  I  have  ever  seen 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES.         147 

was  fraudulent ;  I  only  say  that  it  might  have 
been.  Consequently,  I  cannot  treat  it  as  evi- 
dence of  anything  beyond  the  possible  ingenuity 
of  the  professionals. 

Now  all  of  these  referred  to  (with  the  excep- 
tion of  independent  writing  and  materialization) 
I  know  to  be  genuine.  I  do  not  at  all  mean 
by  this  that  I  know  that  the  "  spirituaHstic  " 
interpretation  of  them  is  the  true  one.  I  mean 
only  that  they  are  genuine  phenomena  ;  that 
they  have  occurred ;  that  they  are  not  tricks  or 
the  result  of  fraud.  I  am  not  saying  (for  I 
must  be  very  explicit  here)  that  imitations  of 
them  may  not  be  given  by  fraudulent  "mediums" 
or  by  the  prestidigitator;  but  that  they  are 
genuine  phenomena,  in  many  cases,  I  have 
proved  over  and  over  again.  I  ought  to  say  a 
special  word  here  in  regard  to  slate  writing.  I 
put  this  one  side,  because  I  know  it  can  be 
done  in  many  Avays  as  a  trick.  More  than  once 
have  I  detected  a  trick  as  being  palmed  off  on 
me  for  genuine ;  but  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that 
I  have   had  experiences  of  this  sort  when  I 


148         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  TLIEOLIIES. 

could  not  discover  any  trick,  and  in  conditions 
where  it  seemed  impossible.  I  leave  it  out  of 
present  account  only  because  I  do  not  feel 
justified  in  saying  I  know,  as  I  do  feel  justified 
in  saying  in  regard  to  most  of  the  others. 

But  a  thousand  experiences  of  these  kinds 
may  occur,  and  yet  find  a  possible  explanation 
without  crossing  the  borders  of  the  possible 
"spirit  "  world.  Psychometry,  visions,  voices, 
table  movements,  automatic  writing,  trance 
speaking — all  these  may  be  accounted  for  by 
some  unusual  activity  of  the  mind  as  embodied. 
They  may  throw  great  and  new  light  on  the 
powers  and  possibilities  of  the  mind  here,  and 
yet  not  lead  us  to  the  land  of  "  spirits." 

But — and  here  is  the  crucial  point  to  be 
noted — by  any  one  of  these  means  a  com- 
munication may  be  made  that  cannot  be 
accounted  for  as  the  result  of  the  mental  activ- 
ity of  any  one  of  the  persons  visibly  present. 
Was  the  statement  made  such  as  was  known, 
or  might  ever  have  been  known,  by  any  of  the 
(visible)  persons  present  ?     In   that  case,   the 


rSYCHICS:  FACTS  ASJJ  THEORIES.  149 

cautious  and  conscientious  investigator  will  feel 
compelled  to  hunt  for  an  explanation  on  this 
side  of  the  border.  For  since  mind-reading  is 
a  known  cause,  he  ^ill  resort  to  that  as  long  as 
he  can,  and  only  go  further  when  absolutely 
compelled  to  do  so.  But  if  none  of  the  people 
(visibly)  present  ever  knew  or  ever  could  have 
known  the  communicated  fact,  then  what  ? 

It  seems  to  me   that  the   Rubicon,  whether 
ever  crossed  or  not,  is  here.     This,  therefore, 
calls    for  clear   discussion   by  itself  ;  but  one 
other  point,  not  yet  sufBciently  noted,  needs  to 
be  disposed  of  first.     When  enumerating  some 
of  the  phenomena  called   "  mediumistic,"  I  re- 
ferred to  the  movement  of  material  objects  in 
a  way  not  be  explained  by  muscular  force,  and 
to   musical  instruments  played  on  by  some  in- 
visible power.     Is  there  any  way  to  account  for 
these    without    supposing    the    presence    and 
agency    of     some     invisible    intelligence?      I 
frankly  confess  I  do  not  know  of  any ;   and 
here  let  me  refer  to  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Elliott 
Coues.     For  years  he  was  connected  with  the 


150         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AND  THEORIES. 

Smithsonian  Institution  in  Washington ;  and 
a  professor  there  is  a  personal  friend  of  mine. 
Pie  is,  if  not  a  materiahst,  an  out  and  out 
agnostic.  I  asked  him  one  day  as  to  the  scien- 
tific standing  of  Professor  Coues,  leaving  out  of 
account  what  he  regarded  as  his  "  vagaries " 
in  connection  with  psychical  matters.  He  re- 
plied that  he  was  "  one  of  the  ablest  and  most 
brilliant  scientific  men  in  Europe  or  America." 
Professor  Coues  then  has  said — I  quote  from 
memory — "  All  material  objects  are  under  the 
power  of  gravity.  If,  then,  any  particle  of 
matter,  though  no  larger  than  a  pin's  head,  be 
moved  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  be  explained  by 
purely  physical  forces,  this  fact  marks  the  bound- 
ary line  between  the  material  and  the  spiritual, 
between  force  and  will." 

But  now  for  a  brief  consideration  of  the  most 
important  psychical  cases  with  which  I  am  ac- 
quainted. More  than  once  I  have  been  told 
by  a  psychic  (and  in  the  most  important  cases 
of  all  the  psychic  was  not  a  professional)  cer- 
tain things  that  neither  the  psychic  nor  myself 


PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEORIES.         151 

knew,  had  known,  or  (in  the  nature  of  the 
ease)  could  by  any  possibility  ever  have  known. 
These  communications  claimed  to  come  from 
an  old-time  and  intimate  friend  who  had 
"  died  "  within  three  months.  The  facts  were 
matters  which  mutually  concerned  us,  and 
which  she  would  have  been  likely  to  have 
spoken  of  if  it  were  possible.  There  was  an 
air  of  naturalness  and  verisimilitude  about  the 
whole  experience,  though  some  parts  of  it  were 
so  "personal"  as  to  render  it  impossible  to 
publish  the  whole  case,  and  so  make  it  as  forc- 
ible to  others  as  it  was  to  me. 

Now,  will  somebody  tell  me  what  I  am  to  do 
with  facts  like  these  ?  In  one  or  two  cases 
the  facts  communicated  to  me  concerned 
happenings,  mental  conditions,  and  spiritual 
suffering  in  another  state,  two  hundred  miles 
away.  I  wish  to  note  briefly  the  ordinary  at- 
tempts at  explanation  and  see  if  they  appear  to 
be  adequate. 

1.  Guess-work ;  coincidence ;  it  happened  so. 
This  mi^lit  be  true  of  one  case,  however  extra- 


152         PSYCHICS:  FACTS  AXD  THEGBIES. 

ordinary ;  but  Avhen  you  are  dealing  with  sev- 
eral eases,  the  theory  of  guess-work  or  coinci- 
dence becomes  more  wonderful  than  the  origi- 
nal fact. 

2.  Clairvoyance.  But  my  friend,  the  non- 
professional psychic,  has  no  clairvoyant  power; 
and,  besides,  clairvoyant  power  does  not  ordi- 
narily reach  so  far,  nor  does  it  deal  with  mental 
and  moral  states  and  sufferings. 

3.  Telepathy.  But  this  is  based  on  sympathy 
between  the  two  persons  concerned,  and  deals 
with  something  in  which  they  are  mutually 
interested.  But  my  friend,  the  psychic,  not 
only  was  no  friend  of  the  parties  concerned  ; 
she  did  not  even  know  that  any  such  persons 
were  in  existence. 

4.  As  a  last  resort,  it  has  been  suggested 
that  we  are  surrounded  by,  or  immersed  in,  a 
sort  of  universal  mind  which  is  a  reservoir  con- 
taining all  knowledge  ;  and  that,  in  some  mys- 
terious way,  the  psychic  unconsciously  taps  this 
reservoir,  and  so  astonishes  herself  and  others 
with  facts,  the  origin  of  which  is  untraceable 


PSYCHIC.'^:  FACTS  AXIJ  THEORIES.  153 

and  unknown.  But  this  seems  to  me  explana- 
tion with  a  vengeance  !  The  good  old  lady, 
after  reading  "  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress" 
with  "  Scott's  Explanatory  Notes,"  said  she 
understood  6 1'^ry^Am^  except  the  notes.  So  in 
this  case,  it  seems  to  me  w^e  might  conceivably 
explcdn  every thincj  except  the  expikination.  No, 
I  must  wait  still  longer.  Unless  my  friend  w^as 
there  telling  me  these  things,  I  confess  T  do  no^ 
know  how  to  account  for  them. 

Here,  then,  for  the  present,  I  pause.  Do 
these  facts  only  widen  and  enlarge  our  thoughts 
concerning  the  range  of  our  present  life  ?  Or 
do  they  lift  a  corner  of  the  curtain,  and  let  us 
catch  a  whisper,  or  a  glimpse  of  a  face,  and  so 
assure  us  that  "death"  is  only  an  experience 
of  life,  and  not  its  end  ?  I  hope  the  latter.  And 
I  believe  the  present  investigation  will  not  cease 
until  all  intelligent  people  shall  have  the  means 
in  their  hands  for  a  scientific  and  satisfa<:'tory 
decision. 

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